August 19, 2024
Announcing the Winners of the 2024 Communications Excellence Awards
State Policy Network is pleased to announce Center of the American Experiment, the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), and the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii are the winners of the 2024 Communications Excellence Awards.
The SPN Communications Excellence Awards recognize and encourage outstanding achievements in marketing, communications, and media across the state think tank Network. Winners will receive a grant to pursue future projects, as well as a trophy to honor their effort and results.
The awards celebrate achievements in three categories: Bold Brand Boost, Powerful Storytelling, and Expanding Your Audience. The 2024 winners were recognized at a special reception at SPN’s Annual Meeting in Phoenix.
Learn more below about the innovative communications strategies American Experiment, WILL, and Grassroot pursued to advance policies that improve the lives of the people in their communities.
On August 26, 2023, Center of the American Experiment staff headed to the “great Minnesota get-together” for a day at the State Fair. Bringing their brand and an issue-specific message to the Minnesota State Fair allowed them to reach people in a unique way, both in quantity and quality. This project enabled American Experiment to increase their name recognition and raise awareness on their key policy priorities.
They brought a bright blue tent branded with their name, logo, website, and social media links, plus more than 3,000 American Experiment-branded t-shirts, pens, sunglasses, tote bags, bottle openers, phone fans, and (the fan-favorite!) corncob holders. They left the fair eight hours later with zero items of merch left over. American Experiment also raffled off a $250 gift card to be used for new car tabs, highlighting the fact that the Minnesota Legislature just raised this very unpopular tax.
One of Minnesota’s biggest challenges politically is citizen apathy and disinterest. But car tabs affect nearly everyone — and the legislature’s car tab fee hike was hugely unpopular. By tying their $250 giveaway to such a widely accessible issue, American Experiment cemented in people’s minds the facts that 1) the legislature raised the price of car tabs that year, and 2) American Experiment opposed it. The car tab raffle garnered hundreds of new email signups for their owned audience, and likely resulted in tens of thousands of “impressions” on American Experiment’s name, website, and logo.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) shared the story of Jean Bahn, a Wisconsin farmer and Wedding Barn owner whose livelihood is at risk because of a new law pursued by the entrenched alcohol interest groups in Wisconsin. Jean is a grandma who farms part time and runs the “wedding barn” part time as well.
In May of 2024, WILL filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR) on behalf of two Wisconsin Wedding Barns, including Jean’s. The lawsuit is seeking to mitigate the harmful impacts of Wisconsin Act 73.
The rollout changed the narrative and made clear that there are real people who will face real harms because of this special-interest driven legislation. WILL received a lot of earned media coverage all around Wisconsin from traditional talk radio to the state’s largest country music station—everyone was talking about how ridiculous it is for the state to do what they did here. This rollout personalized these issues, and helped put WILL in the best position to litigate these issues going forward.
The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii has a goal of becoming a household name in Hawaii, as gauged by regularly reaching at least half a million of the state’s 1.4 million residents each month. This would normalize the values of individual liberty, economic freedom and limited, accountable government in the state, especially among Hawaii’s younger generations, and make it easier to propose policies that currently are considered to be impractical or outside the Overton Window.
So far during 2024, Grassroot has been having its greatest social media success on Instagram. The platform is very popular in Hawaii, with about 72% of residents using it, according to a 2021 poll by Anthology Group commissioned by Grassroot. Previously, Grassroot was enjoying great success with short videos on TikTok, which reached viral heights in 2023 with the hiring of a recent college graduate as marketing associate to run its social media and marketing efforts.
With the new marketing associate on board, Grassroot saw its social media views increase from 3.8 million in 2022 to 13.9 million in 2023. In the first four months of 2024, they reached 14.3 million views. Meanwhile, the Grassroot Institute’s Instagram following has grown from 4,700 in January 2023 to 26,900 as of June 2024.
This opportunity is open to current SPN affiliate members only. All affiliate members are invited to nominate their work in one or more categories. Category finalists are chosen by a selection committee, and the winners are determined by a public vote. Learn more about the awards here.
