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Submissions Sought for “Ideas” Challenge in Celebration of MSI’s 50th Anniversary

Time and again during the past 50 years, the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) has championed ideas that broke new ground in marketing. Often it did so by funding research, but sometimes it did so by supporting ventures that developed the ideas. For example, MSI brokered the multi-company PIMS (Profit Impact of Market Strategy) database, assembled teams to shape policy at the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, conceived of and nurtured a Research Priorities process, and sponsored the Consumer Odyssey, a summer-long road trip that was foundational to the rise of qualitative consumer research.

The goal of the “Ideas” competition is to spark a new generation of fresh ideas, and a new wave of ventures, sourced across the whole community of marketing scholars and thinkers. We are not looking for research proposals, but for proposals to fund activities that precede and enable scholarly output. Since the emphasis is on out-of-the-ordinary activities, criteria for evaluation will be few. Preference will, however, be given to activities that:

• Are novel, catch the imagination, and show promise of invigorating scholarship
• Are interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary
• Facilitate interaction among scholars or among scholars and practitioners, either directly (in which case the participants should be named) or by creation of a platform for future interaction
• Are likely to lead, though not necessarily immediately, to high quality published research
• Draw on MSI’s distinctive strengths and capabilities for implementation

Without limiting the range of what we mean by activities that might spark a new generation of ideas, consider the following as examples:

• A gathering of interdisciplinary academics hosted by a MSI member company to look at a vexing question or issue
• A proposal for a creating a new platform, such as: a project for RFID tracking and mapping of patterns of distribution in emerging markets or across supply chains, a project to build a mobile platform for running experiments in the field or experience sampling, or a project for a next generation mouselab application
• A trip to a range of sites by a small group of academics to study a theme that is common to each site and likely to benefit from being studied by academics collectively
• Developing a radically new research tool or technique
• A program of internships for doctoral students or post-docs in some corner of the marketing profession
• Compiling unique data sources to address key marketing issues
• An MSI conference on a topic never previously explored at a thematically related location (e.g., on-site conference studying a customer experience or business process)
• A database fed by observations of a specific phenomenon across the globe by hundreds of scholars
• An imaginative extension of MSI’s established Research Priorities process (as described in the 2010-12 Research Priorities booklet) that offers new ways to align the interests of member companies and the research problems that scholars study
• A new approach to integrating and communicating marketing information to marketing practitioners and academics· Assembling multidisciplinary academic teams to apply science to public policy issues and to solving societal problems
• The application of important research techniques from other disciplines to marketing

A committee including Dominique M. Hanssens (UCLA), Baba Shiv (Stanford University), Rajan Varadarajan (Texas A&M University), and outgoing and incoming MSI executive directors, Ruth N. Bolton and John Deighton, will manage the process of evaluating submissions. More than twenty-five distinguished academics will assist in the process, including Pradeep Chintagunta, University of Chicago; Anne T. Coughlan, Northwestern University; Ravi Dhar, Yale University; Susan Fournier, Boston University; Mary C. Gilly, University of California Irvine; Joel Huber, Duke University; Sandy D. Jap, Emory University; George John, University of Minnesota; Kevin L. Keller, Dartmouth College; Barbara Khan, University of Pennsylvania; H. Shanker Krishnan, Indiana University; V. Kumar, George State University; Peter Leeflang, University of Groningen; Don Lehmann, Columbia University; Gary Lilien, Pennsylvania State University; David Glen Mick, University of Virginia; Vicki G. Morwitz, New York University; Thomas C. O’Guinn, University of Wisconsin; A. Parasuraman, University of Miami; Linda Price, University of Arizona; Venkatesh Shankar, Texas A&M University; Rosann L. Spiro, Indiana University; David Tse, University of Hong Kong; Christophe Van den Bulte, University of Pennsylvania; William L. Wilkie, University of Notre Dame; Russell S. Winer, New York University; and Stefan Wuyts, Koç University.

It is envisaged that the group will be charged not simply with judging entries, but with encouraging suitable proposals, providing constructive feedback and, where feasible and appropriate, nurturing promising ideas.

Submissions must be received by August 1, 2011. Additional information may be requested of finalists. The Marketing Science Institute has allocated substantial funds to this competition. There is no specific limit to the amount that can be requested. The number of awards is not pre-determined. The amounts awarded will vary across the proposals, depending on the merit and the requirements of the proposed venture. Winners will be announced by November 15, 2011.

The form of submission of the idea will depend on the idea, but might comprise:

• A 3-7 page description of the idea and how it would be executed.
• A one-page statement of the expected contribution of the idea to the field of marketing, including a list of the questions that the idea will help either sharpen or resolve.
• A timetable with milestones and completion date.
• Names of collaborators or potential collaborators.
• Funding needs including, if appropriate, any funding that will or has been obtained from other sources.
• Contact information and vita(e) for the primary collaborators on the proposal.

Feel free to append any supplementary materials that might be helpful to the team evaluating your submission.

E-mail submissions by August 1 to Ross Rizley, Research Director, Marketing Science Institute, at ross@msi.org. Please indicate that your submission is in response to the MSI “Ideas” Competition. More information may be found on the MSI website at

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