CASE STUDIES

HILTON'S CHALLENGE

Hilton is always seeking new approaches to increase the sense of community for its guests. Hilton wished to target a group of forward-thinking individuals who were familiar with the Hilton brand and family of hotels. Additionally, Hilton desired a broad range of concepts from a geographically diverse group of future business leaders. Finally, Hilton wanted to have access to all ideas through a web-based interface, and have the ideas pre-screened by a qualified group of innovation professionals to understand which ideas held the most promise.

Our solution
Hilton was invited to submit its question in the Innovation Challenge. This allowed the company to engage nearly 400 bright MBAs from around the world to tackle this issue. Students were encouraged to visit a local Hilton or franchise hotel, research the company’s current efforts to foster a community among its guests, compile their most innovative thoughts, and submit their best concept for judging. Hilton’s only task was to define a challenge question and await results. Idea Crossing marketed the event, managed contestant registration and communication, accepted structured submissions, recruited judges and facilitated the judging process through our web-based application (Challenge Accelerator™).

Benefits to Hilton
Ideas: Hilton retained ownership of over 80 new approaches to develop a sense of community among its guests.

Expert evaluation: Each plan was graded with both a quantitative score along with a set of individualized comments which shed additional light on each concept’s viability, strengths and weaknesses.

Emotional connection: Participants immersed themselves in the Hilton brand for several weeks while constructing their submissions and every student felt the effect of the Hilton Hotels Corporation on their MBA experience.