ThinkVine Winner of 2012 Cincinnati USA Innovation Award

CINCINNATI, April  26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ThinkVine, a marketing mix optimization software company, was honored at the Second Annual Cincinnati USA Innovation Awards held by the Business Courier and the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber at Duke Energy Convention Center on April 17.  ThinkVine received top prize for "Outstanding Marketing Innovation" – one of eight awards given during the evening ceremony.

"We are pleased to have received this recognition by these very prominent Cincinnati organizations," said Mark Battaglia, CEO of ThinkVine.  "As the marketing landscape continues to evolve in today's consumer-driven world, ThinkVine is committed to providing cutting-edge solutions that automate the marketing mix planning and optimization process and give marketers access to rich, objective decision-making information across consumer groups, marketing activities, distribution channels, and geographies. Using innovative consumer behavior modeling technology, we create a virtual marketplace where marketers can simulate how targeted consumers will respond to marketing for fast, forward-looking forecasts of ROI and sales volume, while ensuring their marketing efforts are agile enough to stay ahead of the competition."

The Business Courier and the Cincinnati Chamber created the awards to shine a spotlight on innovation in the Greater Cincinnati region and to highlight the contributions of innovation to Cincinnati's economic base.  The judge overseeing the selection of the 2012 Innovation Awards was Mark Lacker, the John W. Altman Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at Miami University's Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. Professor Lacker led a team of his MBA students in evaluating the nomination data from each company.

His team applied a screening template using several criteria in three categories including the value of the product or service being offered, third-party validation and evaluation of the management team of the company and their likely ability to execute their plan.

"ThinkVine's marketing optimization software has been endorsed by several big-name consumer goods analysts, including editor's pick in 2011 by Consumer Goods Tech," Lacker's team wrote, also noting ThinkVine's recent successes in raising $8 million in venture capital funding and its hiring growth – to about 40 people this spring. "The company has also achieved significant Series C funding and its new leadership team is focused on growth."

ThinkVine's marketing mix optimization software enables B2C marketers to maximize ROI across all of their marketing investments through breakthrough ThinkAhead Technology that simulates consumer response to marketing efforts. ThinkVine combines demographic info, market and category data, consumer behavior and marketing science to help marketers craft budgets that achieve their most important market share and financial objectives and enables them to quickly adjust plans to make those efforts more effective.  ThinkVine's customers include market leaders across industries such as Coca-Cola, Georgia-Pacific, Hertz, Kimberly-Clark, Hershey's, Pfizer, The Schwan Food Company, Valvoline, and Whitewave.

SOURCE ThinkVine