Business Bake-Off

To celebrate the new chapter in Inc.'s life, Inc. columnist and marketing guru Adam Hanft, CEO of advertising agency Hanft Raboy and Partners, has cooked up a contest.

The prize: A marketing strategy and an advertising campaign.

What you need to do: Prove your business deserves to be picked.

Here's the pitch, in Hanft Raboy's own words:

"We're giving away one stunning marketing strategy and one brililant advertising campaign created by New York's hottest agency, Hanft Raboy and Parnters, to a worthy entrepreneur.

"Tell us why your business deserves this unprecedented honor, which has a value of, God knows, maybe a quarter of a million dollars, maybe more.

"Your pitch can be in any form -- a business strategy, a patent, a paragraph, a poem. Send it to bakeoff@inc.com no later than October 31, 2005. The winner will be announced in January 2006.

"Our selection will be based on one highly uncomplicated criterion: Which business has the most potential, but needs the most help.

"Oh, yes, one other thing. Adam Hanft, a contributing editor to Inc. -- and who writes the Grist column each month -- will be following the development of the strategy and the campaign and will turn it into an Inc. story. So you have to be willing to take the glare of vast media attention."