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  InnoCentiveThe leader in on-demand innovation.IndustryInnoCentive, an e-business venture of Eli Lilly and Company, is an online forum that allows world-class scientists and science-based companies to collaborate in a global scientific community and secure innovative solutions to complex challenges. Companies which collectively spend billions of dollars on R&D post scientific problems confidentially on the InnoCentive Web site where scientists and scientific organizations located all over the world can solve them. Scientists who deliver solutions that best meet the challenge requirements receive financial awards ranging up to US $1,000,000.Business ChallengeDeveloping a new cleaning product, laundry detergent or drug is a race against time and money. A single product introduction can take 12 to 15 years at an average cost of $800 million. Yet, the lean times of the past few years have forced companies across all industries to cut back spending on R&D. Executives at e.Lilly, a business innovation group within Eli Lilly and Company, came up with a radical idea: Instead of burdening its team of 6,000 researchers with the responsibility of solving every challenge, why not open up the R&D walls to the almost limitless talent pool of researchers and scientists around the world? By using the ubiquity of the Internet, Eli Lilly’s R&D group could reach scientists across the globe and entice them to solve problems in exchange for recognition by the global R&D community and a financial reward. Soon after: InnoCentive was born. When InnoCentive partnered with Schwartz, it had only 18,000 scientists signed up as “Solvers”—people who could access the scientific problems and submit solutions—and these were people with backgrounds primarily in chemistry. To fully maximize the InnoCentive model, it needed to expand its community of Solvers, both in numbers and in scientific disciplines beyond chemistry. Schwartz was engaged to increase the number of Solvers as well as build awareness among potential “Seeker” companies looking for solutions to their R&D problems. Schwartz PR StrategyThe main objective for the PR campaign was to drive awareness of InnoCentive and its value proposition to potential researchers and scientists, enticing scientists to sign up as Solvers. The client felt that this goal could be met by securing substantial standalone coverage in the top business, consumer and scientific publications. Schwartz developed hard-hitting, concise messages encapsulating how InnoCentive helps foster innovation, creates a global community of scientists and shortens the R&D lifecycle. In addition, Schwartz identified and secured enthusiastic and supportive scientists and researchers who could serve as press references. Schwartz counseled InnoCentive that the best Solvers to speak with the media would be those with interesting or unusual stories to share, instead of a traditional scientist working in a lab. This would help validate InnoCentive’s business proposition that answers to scientific problems can come from unlikely sources, and that solutions come from anyone with advanced training, intellectual curiosity or the drive to solve scientific problems. Schwartz spoke with many scientists located in the U.S. and abroad and found two who really stood out, including a graduate student who won enough money to buy a car and a patent attorney at a large law firm who holds a Master’s degree in chemistry. These Solvers served as a linchpin to the success of the PR program. Schwartz also contacted Seeker companies and secured positive press references from some of the world’s leading corporations, including The Dow Chemical Company, Procter & Gamble and BASF. ResultsOne of the first publications Schwartz targeted due to its influential reach was BusinessWeek. Within two months, Schwartz secured interest from a science reporter and arranged numerous briefings with InnoCentive’s CEO as well as Seekers and Solvers. As a result, the reporter wrote a standalone article, “Finding Bounty Hunters for Science” which included quotes from InnoCentive, its customers and Solvers. The article was also syndicated online and appeared on more than 35 online news sites, reaching another six million readers. In addition to this on-target standalone profile and the relationship that Schwartz started with the reporter, BusinessWeek included InnoCentive in four articles focused on innovation in one year and it was even included in the publication’s “Web Smart 50—Meet the Masters of the Web.” In addition to BusinessWeek, Schwartz worked with reporters at Newsweek International and Newsweek, where the agency collaborated with PR agencies in Russia and India to line up interviews in a 24 hour period. Additional standalone coverage appeared in Fortune, Business 2.0 and The Boston Globe. Following the business press coverage, the number of registered Solvers increased dramatically, with an additional 30,000 scientists in all scientific disciplines joining the InnoCentive network. |
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Bilbaomuseets foton publiceras med särskilt tillstånd från copyrightinnehavaren FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, 2002 Med ensamrätt. Mångfaldigande av innehållet på denna sajt, helt eller delvis, är förbjudet.
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