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.
PRODUCT LAUNCH /
Distributor $101M to $400M
Springfield Electric Supply
Solar Awareness Campaign
With the goal of creating a campaign on a B2B platform to increase awareness of Illinois solar incentives and its ability to support the market, Springfield launched a
social media campaign using contextual ads and retarget- ing to drive visits to a landing page with an online form. The company’s dedicated Conserve Energy Team responded to 19 leads and added three solar specialists to handle the increased business.
FROM THE JUDGES: “This was a very strategic move. Springfield saw an opportunity to serve a new market and designed a product launch to take advantage of it—and helped its customers at the same time.”
Distributor $401M to $700M
Summit Electric Supply
Summit Lockbox
To differentiate itself from the competition by creating a value-added service offering that is funded in part through cooperation with its manufacturer partners, Summit created a mobile, on-site, secure inventory storage unit: Summit Lockbox. To promote it, Summit created a brochure and distributed it to Summit associates and posted a PDF version on Summit.com.
FROM THE JUDGES: “I really respect Summit for using the Summit Lockbox to reduce reliance on
price sensitivity. It’s a smart approach to making their brand stickier and it gives them a competitive edge. Very clever.”
Distributor More Than $700M
Crescent Electric Supply
Milwaukee Tool Postcard Campaign
In response to a request from the sales staff for assistance in developing a direct mail campaign that would help them promote a new strategic vendor in its local market, Crescent identified six product categories
that aligned with its target market and created a series of direct mail postcards with memorable and unique twists on the specific tool. The result: Milwaukee Tool grew to more than $1 million in sales in the first year of the partnership.
FROM THE JUDGES: “Crescent’s strategy was strong: targeting contractors and identifying six key products instead of throwing the whole ‘toolbox’ at customers.”
Supplier Less Than $250 Million
Universal Lighting Technologies
Touch to Tune
With internal collaboration among product management, sales, and marketing, Universal Lighting Technologies developed a Gantt chart based on critical items required for a successful launch. A product marketing plan was developed and support resources created from which distributors could choose what was right for their branches— including videos, brochures, merchandising, lunch and learns, and sales promotions.
FROM THE JUDGES: “Universal Lighting Technologies made it easy for distributors to find, tune, and replace failed LED drivers in minutes—and made it easy for distributors to market this service.”
Supplier More Than $250 Million
Eaton (Lighting Division)
HALO Home Smart Lighting System
With the goal of entering the residential connected lighting market with a complete connected lighting system that was easy to commission, had no latency, and provided smart lighting for the entire home, Eaton designed a product launch that included marketing, promotional, educational, and training tools; customer events; thought leadership articles; social media; and trade shows.
FROM THE JUDGES: “To call this campaign ‘comprehensive’ is an understatement. Eaton went all out with this effort. I was just amazed by all the materials prepared for this launch.”
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