The Innovation Challenge®, a property of Skild Inc., is the World's largest and most established online innovation competition. For the past 10 years, the brightest and most creative people from all over the world have been matched with leading companies in an experience designed to address our most pressing business and social innovation challenges.
In our latest challenge, Seagram’s Gin seeks creative marketing campaign ideas that can be easily implemented in the summer of 2013. You could win $5,000!
Do you love to throw parties or attend them? Everyone likes a great party. What makes a party great? First, it begins with the party starter’s vision of the experience and meanders into a “fluid” execution of many details. These details are neatly wrapped up into an enjoyable and memorable experience no matter if it’s a bash or close-knit get together.
Challenge Details:
Register to receive the Challenge Question and Brief to learn about their key target audience and how you can help shape the direction of the Seagram’s Gin brand with innovative social marketing tactics.
FREE REGISTRATION STARTS : February 11, 2013
FREE REGISTRATION ENDS: March 3, 2013
On the Judging Panel:
Frans Johansson - CEO, The Medici Group
Frans Johansson is an author, entrepreneur, and innovation thought leader who has spoken to audiences worldwide, from Fortune 500 companies to rural villages. He leads The Medici Group with the same passion, force, and energy he exhibits in his keynotes. He founded The Medici Group to move beyond simply inspiring through his talks, and instead work hands on with clients to deliver strategic options, fast.
His debut, The Medici Effect, was an international bestseller that shattered assumptions about how great ideas happen. His follow up book, The Click Moment, obliterates the idea that in business you can plan, strategize, and analyze your way to success.
Frans has been featured on CNN’s AC360, ABC’s Early Morning Show, and CNBC’s The Business of Innovation series.
Raised in Sweden by his African-American/Cherokee mother and Swedish father, Frans has lived all his life at The Intersection™. Prior to The Medici Group, he founded a software company, a healthcare firm, and a hedge fund. He has written articles on healthcare, information technology, and the science of sport fishing. Frans earned his B.S. in Environmental Science from Brown University and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Follow Frans on Twitter at @Frans_Johansson
Maneesh K. Goyal - President & Founder, MKG
From a Masters in Public Health from Yale, to P. Diddy’s event planner, to a trusted agency partner of some of the world’s biggest brands, Maneesh K. Goyal’s biography is anything but ordinary. After moving to NYC in 1999, things took a turn after 9/11, when he realized he wanted to break down the barriers between ‘work’ and ‘life,’ He left his job in non-profits and began working in event production where he could utilize his skill and love of bringing people together. Once he started following his passion, things began to fall into place. It wasn’t long until he was discovered at an event by P. Diddy and before he knew it, was appearing on MTV as the go-to celebrity party planner.
Maneesh recognized the connection early on between celebrity personalities, events and brands, and saw an opportunity to build a marketing agency centered around connecting consumers to brands. The result is MKG, the eponymous agency Maneesh started 10 years ago that now works closely wi including Delta Air Lines, Evian, Google, Viacom and Estee Lauder, among others. MKG is headquartered in New York with a Los Angeles outpost that opened in 2011. The agency has grown significantly from one employee, Goyal, to a thriving 50-person operation.
Maneesh is also a board member of the Empire State Pride Agenda, sits on the Advisory Council of the American India Foundation and served as an Obama Victory Trustee for President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Earlier this year Maneesh launched Live in the Grey, a passion project centered on the philosophy born out of Maneesh's own journey of blending professional and personal interests into a fulfilling career. The centerpiece of Live in the Grey is a website with original and curated content meant to inspire viewers to find success and happiness by building a career doing what they love.
Malik Yoba - Actor
Best known for his roles in the Disney classic, Cool Runnings, and the hit Fox television series New York Undercover, Malik Yoba has proven himself as a man driven to raise consciousness through the use of his many talents. As an actor, musician, activist, educator, inspirational speaker, playwright, entrepreneur and author, Yoba tackles his quest to educate people and communities across the world on the value of accountability, integrity and leadership with fierce humbleness.
Respected among his peers in education and community activism, by age 20, Yoba worked with 13 New York City Public schools in a program called AIDP (Attendance Improvement Dropout Prevention), in which he assessed students, faculty and parents needs to improve the quality, content and form of education, thereby improving attendance which was presented to the Board of Education in a book of findings. For his dedication to youth, Yoba has been recognized by or worked with former President Bill Clinton, The Congress of the United States, The Mayor of New York City, NYPD, UNICEF, McDonald’s Black Achievers, Hale House, The Ethiopian Children’s Fund, The Conference of Black Mayors, The Congressional Black Caucus and more.
Yoba is most widely known for his love for the arts. Since 1989 he has been in over 25 films including, but not limited to Copland, Smoke, Blue in the Face, Hooked Up, Harlem Aria,Vote for Me, Ride and Dreaming in Black and White, winner of Best Film at the 2003 Phoenix Film Festival. In 2007, he starred in Tyler Perry’s widely successful Why Did I Get Married?,and the sequel Why Did I Get Married Too?. He also wrote, directed and starred in the BET.com web series ShopTalk and recently wrapped the indie feature Recalled (2012). Yoba can be seen on SyFy's Alphas with David Strathairn. He most recently starred in a Lifetime movie “Betty and Corretta” where he played Martin Luther King Jr opposite Angela Bassett’s “Corretta”.
His theatre company, The Malik Yoba National Theatre (MYNT) Company, creates, acquires, produces and distributes content for the urban theatre market. He has co-written two musicals for stage: “What’s on The Hearts of Men” and “Acoustic Chocolate,” both which have been adapted for screen. Yoba was also co-musical director for the Henson/ABC produced Saturday morning show the “CityKids” and wrote the theme song for the Jamaican bobsled team in the movie “Cool Runnings”. He has been a guest on Oprah, Charlie Rose, Regis and Kelly, and has performed as a musical artist at Carnegie Hall and New York’s Theatre at Madison Square Garden.
Dimple Thakkar - CEO, Synhergy Marketing
Dimple Thakkar began her career at a social media agency in New York as the Executive Director of Promotions. During Dimple’s time at the agency, she supervised social media marketing campaigns for top brands, influential Web 2.0 companies such as Photobucket, meebo, NING and over 50 artists including Kanye West, 50 Cent, Justin Timberlake, and Britney Spears. Additionally, Dimple worked in the talent management division within the same company as the Vice-President of New Media and Online Marketing, serving on the management team for a Grammy-nominated and global touring artist, as well as other Billboard charting rock and pop artists.
Currently, Dimple owns and operates SYNHERGY MARKETING which offers all types of online marketing, training, coaching and consulting with a focus in social media. Within their first year of establishment, SYNHERGY MARKETING was nominated top social media agency of 2009 on Mashable.com, one of the world’s largest blogging and news websites.
In 2012, Dimple received the Power 30 Under 30 Award, an organization that recognizes young professionals that have accomplished much at a young age as well as a prestigious nomination from Empact100, who recognize and showcase the Top 100 companies in the country run by entrepreneurs, ages 30 and under, with a ceremony at the White House. The year of 2013 started with a bang when SYNHERGY won the Small Business of the Year Award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, representing the 100 best in American business.
Dimple Thakkar has a BA in Communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Joe Conte - Sr. Business Organizer, NationBuilder
A chronic explorer, he has finally found his home in LA and with NationBuilder. During his brief time with NationBuilder he has helped everyone from aspiring presidential campaigns to lean startups utilize NationBuilder's tools to organize their way to success. Previously he has tried his hand at lobbying, campaign management, entrepreneurship, sales, the corporate world and much of what life has to offer. A networker by nature, he spends his time in the presence of friends, learning from greats such as Howard Stern and Jay-Z, and thinking of new ways a nation can change someone's world.
