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.
INTEGRATED PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN /
Distributor $101M to $400M
Werner Electric Minnesota
Werner Safety Campaign
In three phases Werner Electric Minnesota designed an event to provide safety education and training to customers. Phase one created a campaign timeline and developed branding. In phase two, the marketing team collaborated with each business unit to create messaging. Phase three was the customer-facing components, including a safety capabilities brochure, social media campaign, website landing page, and educational event.
FROM THE JUDGES: “This branded Safety Summit, supported largely by social and digital media, produced impressive results with a nearly 31% email open rate, 7.4% click rate, and a lot of happy attendees!”
Distributor $401M to $700M
Summit Electric Supply
Road Map 2018
Summit created a series of events to bring its associates and manufacturer partners together for focused sales planning: five large, district-wide planning events followed up by smaller, branch-level checkup meetings after six months. Save-the-dates, formal invitations, custom agendas, and presentations delivered by team members high- lighted the events, which were attended by nine manufacturers, more than 100 independent and factory reps, and more than 100 associates.
FROM THE JUDGES: “This personalized, customized event strengthened partnerships and increased sales. I really don’t know what they could have done better.”
Distributor More Than $700M
Crescent Electric Supply
Salt Lake City Solar Campaign
This six-week campaign by Crescent included a series of print and digital messages featuring key vendor solar products and value-added solutions to showcase its product breadth and capabilities. Communications were scheduled in a set cadence, providing the audience with a unified and consistent message throughout the program. As a result, the Salt Lake City district grew its solar business to more than $1 million in the six-month period following the campaign.
FROM THE JUDGES: “I loved the bold headlines, clever copy, and stark graphics along with the fun, conversational copy and the cohesiveness of the entire series.”
Supplier Less Than $250M
Ledalite by Signify
Ledalite EyeLine
In an effort to build awareness about a new statement linear lighting product and generate excitement about it prior to launch—all with a limited budget—Ledalite by Signify employed two different strategies: creating a social media-sharing contest to engage its sales agency reps and communicating the features of the product in an intriguing and memorable way through various media.
FROM THE JUDGES: “Incorporating the profile of the product in the logo was brilliant and very memorable. They also had some fun with the logo by creating temporary tattoos and taking selfies of [Lightfair] booth visitors, further reinforcing the brand.”
Supplier More Than $250M
Hubbell Wiring Device-Kellems
Hubbell Installation Efficiency Campaign
To create awareness about Hubbell’s Installation Efficiency product solutions and resources, a series of educational tools was created to help installers and commercial builders learn about them: a dedicated Installation Efficiency website landing page, a 360° Installation Efficiency e-tour, and a 20-page Installation Efficient Product Solutions guide (available in print and online). The tools were announced via an e-newsletter sent to about 4,000 distributors.
FROM THE JUDGES: “The 360° interactive e-tour was so comprehensive customers could actually drill down to specific part numbers, link to the website, and place orders. Now that’s real integration!”
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