The marketing department of a large hotel chain was looking for alternatives to consumer surveys to forecast the success of special promotions and marketing campaigns. The surveys ended up costing a lot of time and money for the results obtained. Also, the survey results were same or only marginally better then the predictions of idea originators.

In this company, a diverse group of 60 employees were pre-selected to participate in the prediction market. Diversity enables better predictions as there is less intimidation/influence among members, independence of thought, and wider knowledgebase. Each participant got $10,000 virtual dollars to invest in the ideas. An attractive incentive package consisting of vacation packages, gift certificates was provided for being successful in the marketplace.

This is how the InnovateUs Solution was used:

Creating the Marketing Campaign: InnovateUs Idea Templates™ were used to gather relevant information about ideas for 3 different marketing campaigns. Marketing department had some pre-defined ideas that they started with. Employees entered additional ideas for each marketing campaign. InnovateUs allows multiple idea markets and each marketing campaign formed an independant trading market.

Idea Selection: Participants put money on marketing campaigns they thought would succeed; as in the real stock market. Rating, Thumbs Up/Down, and Comments were used to gather additional feedback on ideas. These proved important ways in further refining the idea and aiding in the decision making process. Participants were provided one week for feedback and another week for bidding on ideas.

Idea Analysis & Recommendation: The stock price was determined using Dutch auction process. This process has been used in recent times by Google for their IPO and is proven to get the most accurate price for a stock. Managers evaluated ideas based on the stock price and the strategic business needs. Other metrics like rating, support, and comments helped management in getting a better understanding of what employees think about the selected ideas.

The anonymous Idea creation gave participants the required impetus to freely suggest ideas without fear of embarrassment and negative repercussions. Seeing the opportunity to win some incentives, participants invested their money wisely. In the end, the management ended up with a ton of great ideas and opinions to guide their decisions. The 3 marketing campaigns finally picked for implementation were among the top 5 as predicted by the InnovateUs Prediction Market.