Recognizing Marketing’s Finest
FORTY-SEVEN INDIVIDUAL MARKETING EFFORTS EARN AWARDS IN OUR 2019 CONTEST
Judging for tED magazine’s 2019 Best of the Best Marketing Awards Competition took place during April. Our four judges weighed the entries submitted for the contest’s 11 categories, which are separated by company type and sales volume. Ultimately, 47 entries were determined winners, with two companies—OneSource Distributors and Intermatic—taking home the honor of Best of the Best Overall Distributor and Best of the Best Overall Supplier, respectively. “Each year I am more impressed by the creativity we see in these entries,” said Best of the Best judge Jan Niehaus. “From top-of-the-line design to fresh and innovative ways to capture their customers’ attention, marketing in the electrical channel continues to impress.” Here we present all of this year’s winning submissions. Be sure to check out our monthly Best of the Best Awards coverage in this magazine’s “Selling” section for more insight into the winning entries.
LITERATURE/SELLING TOOL /
Distributor $401M to $700M
Summit Electric Supply
Summit Lockbox
Summit created a sales brochure detailing its newest solution, the Summit Lockbox. An in-house photoshoot was held to illustrate the lockbox’s features and benefits. The brochure was housed on Summit.com and Insummit.com and distributed at sales and customer events. With the brochure’s help, Summit went from supplying zero to supplying 50-plus lockbox units within the first year—prompting the need for greater inventory.
FROM THE JUDGES: “The brochure is nicely laid out and organized. It reinforces the Summit brand through its content and design and the product itself, which bears the company name and custom lockbox logo.”
Distributor More Than $700M
OneSource Distributors
Value-Added Solutions Literature
OneSource created a family of literature for its value-added solutions that work together as a set or as stand-alone pieces. The one-page sheets were introduced at the company’s supplier planning meeting—at the same time the company launched a new logo and updated branding.
FROM THE JUDGES: “OneSource incorporated elements of the new logo in each piece, creating a consistent, unified look and feel, but giving each piece its own unique design. These marketing pieces did exactly what they were supposed to do: provide easy-to-use, easy-to-access marketing support pieces for the sales team.”
Supplier Less Than $250M
Nora Lighting
Nora Lighting LED Catalog
Nora Lighting’s LED catalog offers more than a way to order product: It’s a resource and a training tool for anyone in the lighting business who wants to learn more about the technology. In addition to showcasing artful installations, the catalog presents relevant data: product specifications, photometrics, application images, explanatory graphics and charts, point-by-point layouts, and technical information on LED functionality.
FROM THE JUDGES: “Packed with application photos, useful information, and product data, this catalog has everything customers need to make the right choices about lighting. Plus, it’s just a beautiful piece.”
Supplier More Than $250M
Hubbell Wiring Device-Kellems
Hubbell 360° Healthcare E-Tour
To make it fast and easy to find any solution that may apply in areas specific to healthcare, Hubbell Wiring Device-Kellems created a tool that visually symbolizes how and where its products and solutions are installed as well as the features and benefits they offer. The result: Instead of searching several places for product information, it’s all presented within the e-tour.
FROM THE JUDGES: “I’m blown away by this interactive, digital selling tool. The best part: It was developed by a team of engineers, IT specialists, and graphic artists and with feedback from Hubbell Wiring Device-Kellems’s own healthcare customers.”
PRINT AD /
Distributor Less Than $100M
Vaughan Electrical Supply
Lighting the 6ix
Playing off rapper and Toronto native Drake’s nickname for Toronto (the Six), Vaughan mimicked the performer’s “Toronto’s Very Own” album and “October’s Very Own” clothing line in its “Vaughan’s Very Own” campaign. Featured in print ads and apparel, it is also being rolled out onto the company’s fleet of trucks and has become a way of relating to where its customers shop and the pride behind supporting a local business.
FROM THE JUDGES: “Customers have posted images of the apparel from around the world, demonstrating an emotional connection with the brand. Clearly Vaughan speaks their language.”
Distributor $401M to $700M
Summit Electric Supply
Digital Billboard in Sulphur
Recognizing a geographic area and vertical market with tremendous growth potential, Summit (in partnership with Eaton) strategically chose digital billboards on the main corridor leading to a high concentration of petrochemical plants. The campaign, which ran from February to April (peak plant activity season), garnered more than 500,000 impressions, while sales for the Sulphur, La., location grew 8% during that period, compared with the previous year.
FROM THE JUDGES: “These striking billboards feature bold, recognizable photography and strong headlines that spoke directly to electrical contractors.”
Supplier Less Than $250M
Intermatic
COMBOConnect Junction Box Transformer, ReadySet Electronic Valve Actuator, & Low-Profile Expandable In-Use Weatherproof Cover Ads
This series of three ads by Intermatic highlights three different time-, labor-, and space-saving products for pools and spas.
FROM THE JUDGES: “Although each ad targets a different audience, they all work together by using similar visuals and offering application-oriented solutions, giving it more of a campaign feel. Intermatic’s consistent layout and typography, visually interesting photography, and use of the color blue create unity and flow throughout the series of ads.”
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