AMEC, OAEC and StoryConnect Among Co-op Winners in CCA Contest

Cheese crafters. Milk makers. Farm suppliers. Money savers. Electric and telco communicators share many messages, but how often do you look for inspiration from other types of cooperatives?  

The 2023 Cooperative Communicators Association Communications Contest celebrates engaging writing and marketing ideas from across all cooperative sectors. This year, 37 unique cooperatives from agriculture, marketing, financial and utility-related fields entered 390 examples of their best work in writing, photography, publications, projects and programs.  

Pioneer’s Winning Ideas  

When competing with ideas from all types of cooperatives, Pioneer Utility Resources won five awards: 

• Website, first place: www.pioneer.coop  

• Cooperative education, first place: “The StoryConnect Podcast“

• Annual report, first place: Built to Share Your Story 

• Direct mail, first place: 2023 Content Planner: What Stories Can We Build Together?  

• Short-term campaigns and programs, third place: Ampersand campaign for National Cooperative Month. 

The website award is the third honor for the redesign strategy (it won two gold Spotlight on Excellence awards from NRECA). Pioneer.coop relaunched at the end of 2021, drawing 10,729 visitors in 2022.  

“The StoryConnect Podcast” won first place for cooperative education, a unique award in the programs and projects category. Entries could be anything written or produced which represents one or more of the sevencooperative principles. Podcast episodes, featuring ideas from telco and electric co-op leaders, were played 3,290 times last year. The podcast celebrated 250 episodes in 2023, sharing new ideas almost every week on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. 

“One judge said, ‘The podcast is an extraordinary example of understanding the target audience needs and crafting content that is helpful. Nicely written shows, notes and accompanying graphics let us see who is doing the talking,’” said Oklahoma Association of Electric Cooperatives Field Editor Lance Shaw, who presented the award. 

Two other member communication ideas, Pioneer’s 2021 Member Report and a mailed content planner, won for using digital and print methods to engage Utility Pioneers.  

The digital member report turned videos recorded for the online member meeting into easy-to-review content. Bullet points under each video gave high-level takeaways and ways to learn more. 

“This was the only entry with a video report. This makes it easy to understand and a lot more entertaining. Great job,” said Michelle Geans, CCA Contest Committee Chair and Communications and Public Relations Specialist for Baldwin EMC.  

The content planning calendar, sent to members in lieu of a traditional holiday card, won for best direct mail example. The planner pairs traditional calendar elements with content planning advice, spreadsheets and QR codes each month that Utility Pioneers scan to get video updates (and a chance to win swag!) from the co-op. Didn’t get one in the mail? Pop your email in below and we’ll send you the download link:

Utility Pioneers Shine at CCA 

We enjoyed seeing winning ideas from all sorts of cooperatives, including Tillamook Creamery, CHS (the largest co-op in the nation), MFA Incorporated, Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative and Texas Farm Credit. CCA members can see winning examples from each year on CCA’s website. We loved watching several Utility Pioneers win awards on the national co-op stage, too. Here are the winning Pioneer members with links to their winning ideas, when possible.

Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives 

• Informative/investigative feature, first place: “Summers on the Vine”  
• Entertaining feature, second place: “Rare Air”  
• News story, second place: Community Connected  
• Corporate PR, second place: “Back to J.C.” 
• Photo feature, third place: “Breakaway Siberians” 
• Documentary video, second place: “Singing Butcher Shoppe”
  

Flint Energies  

• Entertaining featurette, third place: Cooperative Communications 
• Print, third place: 2023 Benefits Enrollment Guide 
• Campaigns and Projects, honorable mention: “go EVwhere” 
• Promotional, second place: 85th Anniversary Candy Bar 

Oklahoma’s Electric Cooperatives 

• • Personality profile featurette, first place: “R.O.A.D. to Recovery”  
  • Entertaining feature, first place: “Community Support Burns Bright” 
  • Editorial, honorable mention: “Redesign Aims to Shine Brightly”  
  • Column or series, third place: “From the Editor” 
  • Cover of the year, second place: Oklahoma Living Magazine, May 2022 
  • Most improved publication, first place: Oklahoma Living Magazine
     

Oklahoma Electric Cooperative

• Cooperative education, third place: New Member Onboarding Email Series 
• Cooperative education, second place: Welcome to OEC Brochure 
• E-newsletter, first place: Co-op News
• Photo editing, first place: OEC Safety Training  
  

What’s CCA? 

The Cooperative Communicators Association brings together communication and marketing professionals from all types of co-ops — including Pioneer, your communications co-op — to share ideas and learn from each other. Awards for the best writing, campaigns, websites and other marketing materials were announced June 5, during the CCA Institute in Portland, Maine. The next institute is June 2-4, 2024, in Des Moines, Iowa.