Lovehoney has launched its latest Design A Sex Toy competition, which has now become an annual event, and it has recruited the world’s best-selling author of erotica to help it decide the winner. The company says it had a record number of entries to last year’s competition and now two of the winning entries are in production. The best-known product to emerge from previous competitions is Sqweel, the rotating wheel which simulates oral sex, which won in 2009. ‘Hundreds of thousands’ of Sqweels have since been sold worldwide, earning designer Trevor Murphy more than £150,000 in royalties.
The judging panel for Lovehoney’s 2014 DAST competition includes Lelo founder Eric Kalén as well as Fifty Shades of Grey author E L James. There are three categories – best sex toy for women, men and couples – each offering a £1,000 prize and a further £2,000 will go to the creator of the overall winning design, which will be considered for production.
Lovehoney co-founder Neal Slateford said: “We had an amazing response to the competition last year with more than 400 entries – our most ever. We are now developing two of the products and expect to release details later this year. This shows we are really serious about introducing new toys to the market from the competition. I think we got so many entries last year because a lot of people have seen the success of the Sqweel and thought, ‘I am sure I can match that.’ If we get a design which brings something completely new to the market there is no reason why the designer cannot enjoy the same kind of payday as Trevor. You don’t need to be engineer or a designer to enter – all we need is a great idea and a rough sketch so that our designers can make your sex toy become a reality.”
Sqweel creator Trevor Murphy, from Toronto, Canada, said: “I’ve been squealing with delight ever since I won. It has been wonderful seeing my design sold all over the world and even featured in movies and on the Jay Leno show in America. The team at Lovehoney are wonderful to work with. They are fantastic at bringing innovative designs to the market.”
Entrants need to provide a drawing of their design, a product name, plus an explanation of how it works, who it is for and what makes it different. The competition closes on July 2nd and full details can be found at www.lovehoney.co.uk/design-a-sex-toy
Lovehoney is currently being featured in the fly-on-the-wall series Frisky Business, being shown on Lifetime TV, and in last week’s episode viewers saw the Lovehoney team judging 2013’s DAST entries.
