Turning films into a social experience
A digital contest that made discovery, participation, and sharing feel connected.
Product Design
UX Design
Gamification
Overview
When the community became the director
Bud 66 Films extended a one-off Budweiser event into a digital contest where the community created films around a brand-defined theme. As the end-to-end Product Designer, I designed a web platform and PWA where people could submit, discover, watch, and vote for each other's films: a "streaming"-inspired experience powered by UGC and community voting.
Problem
The challenge was not simply to create a "beautiful landing page," but to build a product that resolved several critical tensions:
- UGC, moderation, and trust: people needed to feel safe watching and voting on films, not as if they were navigating an uncurated repository.
- Fast discovery: with abundant content and little time, users had to find compelling films in seconds.
- Participation conversion: the contest relied on moving people from browsing to watching, voting, and, for contestants, submitting a film without friction.
- Mobile-first context: much of the traffic came from social channels and activation QR codes, requiring a fast, lightweight, "app-like" PWA experience.
Research
With a limited delivery window, I focused research on the signals with the highest product impact:
Streaming pattern benchmarking
Catalog structure (cards), information hierarchy, loading states, and key "decision points": play, pause, vote, and share.
Viewer and contestant journey mapping
Viewer: arrive → explore → play → vote → share → keep watching. Contestant: understand the rules → submit → confirm status → invite votes.
Assumptions tested with heuristics and quick checks
Slow video or unclear progress drives abandonment. If "voting" feels unclear or biased, participation drops.
Design Decisions
The core UX and UI decisions reduced friction while increasing engagement:
- "Catalog"-led architecture: a home screen organized around featured, recent, and trending films so users understood what to do within five seconds.
- High-signal cards: thumbnail, title, creator, and status where relevant. Each card had to make people feel it was "worth pressing play."
- "Player"-led detail pages: playback took priority, with a persistent Vote CTA placed close to the player without competing with the film. Post-vote feedback confirmed the action and status immediately.
- A PWA that supported performance and habit: fast navigation, "app-like" behavior, and mobile-first loading, skeleton, and empty states.
- Alignment with the existing brand: I reused and adapted assets from Budweiser's previous app to accelerate delivery while maintaining a cohesive visual system and reusable components.
Solution
The result was a complete content-led contest experience:
Impact
Adoption and activation
Onboarding completion rate: 62% (users who complete onboarding and choose a team).
Activation rate (first vote in <24h): 48%. Nearly 1 in 2 users moved from viewer to active participant on day one.
Engagement (core loop)
Votes per session: 0.85. The voting flow stayed short and "penalty-free," with no unnecessary steps.
Early drop-off (first 10s): 19%. Clearer flows and stronger perceived performance reduced early exits.
Average session duration: 3m 40s (short mini-games + checking points/rewards).
Retention
Video completion rate (≥ 90%): 44%. More people watched through because the content and experience "held up."
PWA return rate (returning users): 42%. The "app-like" experience became part of users' campaign habits.
This project turned a contest into a genuine community experience: a stage for people to share their stories, discover others' talent, and feel part of something bigger through their vote.
