The Insight Innovation Competition has been one of my absolute favorite initiatives since Ray Poynter and Pravin Shekar suggested it as part of the very first Festival of NewMR six years ago. The idea of developing a research-centric innovation competition for young companies to gain exposure, support, and capital was something new for our space, but from it’s inception the response from the industry has been phenomenal. To date over 150 companies have entered and 57 have made it to the final round, with 10 winners going on to win the prize. Many of the participating companies have received funding or been acquired, with even more going on to organic success through new clients and partners.
In short, the IIC is making a difference for all stakeholders in the marketing insights space, and that has always been the goal. We’re thrilled it continues to evolve and deliver on that promise!
In this most recent round, 15 companies officially threw their hats in the ring, and it is an amazing group of participants pushing the boundaries of innovation in market research.
Here are the final results from the open voting phase.
| Idea | Votes |
| Innovative Library Management Using Holographic Projection Technology | 252 |
| PROMPT: Predictive Test Marketing | 243 |
| delvv.io | 208 |
| Conjoint.ly | 150 |
| EyeSee Research – Neuromarketing in cloud | 113 |
| CAVII-Retail, powered by OSG ASEMAP and IBM WATSON | 63 |
| NeuronsHub — A Dashboard Solution for Neuroscience Research | 40 |
| Seedling | 34 |
| weseethrough | 28 |
| Cross-platform TV and radio attribution analytics | 25 |
| Plotto | 20 |
| Cognitive Brand and Consumer Insights from Unstructured big data | 8 |
| Unomer | 5 |
| Revuze – Analyst in a Box | 4 |
| Branded Mobile Communities Engage Audiences with Content and Reward Loyalty | 4 |
The crowd voting is just the first part though. 5 finalists and 1 wildcard will now go on to the Judging round at IIeX EU in Amsterdam, and here is what they are competing for:
- $20,000 cash award.
- Exposure to large international audience of potential prospects, funding partners, venture capitalist and angel investors.
- An invitation to present at the next Insight Innovation eXchange
- An interview to be posted on the GreenBook Blog, viewed by 36,000+ industry professionals per month
- An opportunity to work with successful senior leaders within the market research space
So what happens now?
The companies that will go on to the Judging Round and their chance to win $20k and all of the other benefits of making it to the finals are:
On February 20, 2017, as part of Insight Innovation eXchange Europe 2017, the finalists will present their concepts to a panel of judges comprised of sponsors of the competition in a live event. Each presentation will last 10 minutes: 5 minutes to pitch and 5 minutes for Q&A from the judges. The panel of judges will be moderated by Gregg Archibald, Senior Partner at Gen2 Advisors. and the panel of judges include
- Vijay Raj (Unilever)
- Jeff Krentz (Kantar)
- Reineke Reitsma (Forrester)
- Melanie Courtright (Research Now)
- Dan Foreman (Hatted)
Using a 10-point scale for each category, judges rate each presentation on:
- Originality of concept
- Presentation quality
- Market potential
- Scalability
- Ease of Implementation
On February 21st, 2016 we’ll reveal the scores. The highest final score wins. The winner takes home the pot and chooses which of the judges they would like to engage with afterwards as a mentor.
A BIG thanks needs to go out to our IIC sponsors who fund the prize:
The judges have their work cut out for them. Each of these entrants have immense potential, and any of them could easily take home the prize! But, there can be only one who will take their spot along past winners of the IIC:
The other five will be in good company as well and will join the 50 other finalists who have gone to great success even though they did not win the competition:
Although the other companies that entered won’t get a chance to present to the judges and win the prize, since we believe everyone deserves as much attention as possible and should still have a chance to network with the potential clients, partners, and investors at the event we’re working on creating some additional session space in the agenda right now for a few of the runner ups so they will have an opportunity to make short presentations on their capabilities and business use cases to attendees.
It’s not too late to grab your ticket to IIeX so you can experience these (and many more!) great innovative companies first hand. Don’t be left out from meeting the companies that will be driving the future of the industry and exploring how they can work with your organization to deliver insight innovation and impact!
