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Communications Excellence
This year’s Awards for Communications Excellence program, generously supported by Facebook, showcased top communications and marketing work of chambers of commerce and similar organizations. A panel of communications and marketing professionals from 16 U.S.-based chambers of commerce evaluated 173 entries submitted for this year’s competition. Judges presented 12 Awards of Excellence and three Best in Show awards.
Here’s a closer look at the entries that won Best in Show.
ACCE thanks Facebook for supporting the Awards for Communications Excellence
Category One
S.H.E. Week
Frederick County Chamber, Frederick, Md.
The Frederick County Chamber of Commerce's Women in Business Committee’s mission is to empower and develop women through education, networking, mentoring and partnerships and to promote opportunities for all women throughout Frederick County.
S.H.E. Week is an extension of this mission and centers around the concept of Strength, Heart and Equality (S.H.E.). The event, which occurs the last week of August, celebrates the power and influence of women in the Frederick County, Md., community as they work to transform lives and improve economic conditions.
2020 was the second year for S.H.E. Week, which was forced to go virtual due the pandemic. Social media played a large role in generating interest before, during and after the event, and built community between the women who were unable to gather in person. Marketing strategies and content featuring inspiring and empowering visuals kept the community engaged. Two chamber members donated their design services for both digital and physical assets.
“The designs were created using the chamber's primary and secondary colors and fonts to keep the visuals fresh but stay within brand,” said Jennifer Gerlock, vice president of marketing and communications at the Frederick County Chamber.
S.H.E. Week brought in new memberships, statewide recognition and collaborative partners to the chamber, along with non-dues revenue.
“S.H.E. Week has completely transformed the way that our Chamber is viewed in the community in regard to women’s issues,” said Gerlock. “Once viewed as a ‘good ole boys’ network,’ the chamber is now considered the premier organization for professional women’s issues.”
Female-owned business leaders continue to join the chamber, citing S.H.E. Week and women’s issues as their main motivator for joining.
Category Two
Get. Gather. Go. Campaign
Ocala Metro Chamber & Economic Partnership, Ocala, Fla.
When the CARES Act was signed in March 2020, Ocala Metro Chamber & Economic Partnership (CEP) had one very critical goal—get as many local businesses, regardless of CEP partnership, to apply for a PPP loan as possible.
“We believed that the PPP had the potential to be a game changer for local businesses impacted by the pandemic,” said Kevin T. Sheilley, CEP president & CEO.
The Monday after the act was signed, the CEP kicked off the Get. Gather. Go. initiative: GET businesses informed on the program, have them GATHER the necessary information and GO apply.
The coordinated media campaign included radio, billboards, print, a dedicated website and social media. The Facebook campaign reached more than 224,000 people. Messages were customized for small businesses, independent contractors and the self-employed. All content, a mix of graphics and videos, was produced in-house. The CEP also hosted webinars and Facebook Live sessions to educate and answer questions.
“Because this was a community-based public relations campaign, we were able to leverage public service announcement space from our radio, billboard and newspaper vendors in the community at no cost,” explained Olana McDonald, communications director for the CEP.
After the first round of funding, approximately 2,800 businesses received nearly $300 million in funding. The momentum continued during the second round of funding. Altogether, PPP loans pumped approximately $400 million back into the local economy and helped to retain more than 38,000 jobs.
The Get. Gather. Go. campaign’s success also had an unexpected return for the CEP. They experienced a six percent increase in new and renewing partnership revenue.
Category Three
Chattanooga Open Source
Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, Tenn.
When highly sought-after tech firms came calling, the Chattanooga Area Chamber created the Chattanooga Open Source website. With several area colleges and universities graduating highly qualified IT students every year and a strong entrepreneurial community, both the Economic Development and Marketing Communications teams believed their community would be a great fit.
“Inspired by classic video game visuals and featuring game-like navigation functions, the concept was designed to stand out in a crowded field of competitors,” said Jeremy Henderson, creative director, Chattanooga Area Chamber. “We spoke in ‘coder language’ and showcased Chattanooga slices of life, including day-in-the-life videos highlighting an easy commute, mountain and river views.”
They had less than two weeks to turn it around. The team designed the entire website from scratch, including new videos, visual design and copy before the deadline. In addition, content was designed so that marketing communications and economic development staff could re-purpose it to continue to attract tech investment.
The chamber’s marketing communications team built the site in house using WordPress. The concept, graphics and videos included an interactive “16-bit” map of Chattanooga and only two videos required outsourcing.
The website was tested on all major platforms and devices. Including a custom-built web app for Apple devices that was loaded onto iPads and shared with representatives from the prospective tech firm.
The site has been so popular that the chamber’s economic development team has used it to respond to several RFPs.
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