Pressing On

‘Decade of consumer’ brought big changes to electric industry and publication

A March 1990 Electric Consumer commentary by Bob Bergland, then executive vice president of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, predicted that the 1990s would be the “decade of the consumer.” Among Indiana’s electric cooperatives and within the pages of their statewide publication, Electric Consumer, Bergland’s words became a prophecy fulfilled.

Consumer-owned co-ops initiated or enlarged bold and innovative programs to help consumers conserve energy and improve the environment during the 1990s. Radio-controlled water heater (and now air conditioning) switch programs helped consumers and their co-ops save money during high electrical demand times. Co-ops promoted geothermal heating and cooling systems and innovative electric thermal storage units that could lower heating and cooling bills. And as the federal government opened up the electric industry to wholesale power competition and states began to deregulate the electric industry creating “customer choice,” co-ops everywhere became even more focused on their consumers and the local communities they serve.

In April 1998, co-ops nationwide branded their form of energy with a “human connection” to the consumer when they introduction of the Touchstone Energy alliance. As this new face of the industry began to evolve rapidly in the early 1990s, co-ops realized they needed a tighter conneciton with the younger professional consumers who were migrating to the new suburban neighborhoods on co-op lines. To better meet their needs while still serving the long-time readers, Electric Consumer underwent dramatic change, too.

In November 1992 the publication began a six-month redesign project with a series of five reader focus groups around the state. Groups of readers were asked to critique every aspect of the publication. Then they sat down with staff, co-op leaders and an outside facilitator to discuss the publication. What emerged from those meetings was a new, more reader-friendly Electric Consumer that premiered in June 1993.

The new publication was downsized from its former newsprint tabloid format. More dramatically, the looks and feel of the entire publication were redesigned using more contemporary typefaces, information boxes, sidebars, graphics and color throughout. Cover stories were shortened. The publication became neatly trimmed around the edges and stapled to hold the pages together. The paper stock improved from the gray newsprint used for 42 years to a heavier, whiter stock. But it remained a newsprint that could easily be recycled.

Meanwhile, time-tested reader favorites, like the recipes, photo essays and profiles on consumers, continued and even became more reader friendly and colorful. The redesign met with praise from consumers and met the goal of keeping the production and average mailing cost of each issue under the price of a first class postage stamp. That June 1993 issue kicked off a new focus on consumer features, too.

While reader submissions for recipes and other odds and ends had been a monthly part of the publication since the 1950s, the first cover story of the redesigned issue asked readers to tell us what was great about Indiana. That was followed by an old pickup truck contest in October 1993 and an essay contest in November 1993 about why readers were thankful to live in rural Indiana. In March 1994, Electric Consumer added faces to its food page, creating a quarterly feature called “Cook’s Profile.” It has since introduced readers to scores of men, women and children who love to cook.

In December 1996, Electric Consumer initiated an annual Christmas Tree Ornament contest that remained a popular annual feature for a decade and even had its own “Hall of Fame.”  In 1997, the contest was enhanced with an annual auction of the ornaments that raised over $12,600 in all for worthy community causes, primarily the Ronald McDonald House of Indiana.

In an effort to reach younger readers, Electric Consumer began a contest in some editions called “Where’s Willie?” in June 1994. It featured a hand-built replica of lovable co-op mascot Willie Wiredhand. Each month for a year, the 8-inch tall Willie traveled the state sending back photographs and verbal clues to his whereabouts, which sometimes coincided with the cover story. Youngsters had to figure out where he was to win prizes. One month he was suited up in football gear at Notre Dame, another he was clowning around at the Peru Circus and another found him painting in Brown County.

The feature was revived in 2004 as “Willie's Adventure Team” with a new Willie Wiredhand bobblehead that was enhanced and manipulated with computer software. The Adventure Team was followed by “ElecTrivia,” “Travels with Willie,” and now a safety feature called “Be ‘Willie’ Smart with Electricity.”

The Electric Consumer’s granddaddy contest to date first sent out a call for entries in August 1998. What followed was an onslaught of packages and boxes containing student artwork for the Cooperative Calendar of Student Art contest. Winning artwork from grades kindergarten through 12 would illustrate each month and the cover of the 1999 Cooperative Calendar that the Electric Consumer staff was producing for participating co-ops. Some 6,400 entries arrived that first year.

The contest is in its 11th year as the 2009 calendar goes to press.

The calendar and art contest earned the publication a community service award from its national association in 1999.

The Electric Consumer earned two other prestigious awards in the 1990s. NRECA presented the publication’s third George W. Haggard Memorial Journalism Award to editor Emily Schilling and senior editor Richard Biever in March 1997. The award is given annually to the best electric co-operative publication in the nation. The two earned their second and the publication’s fourth Haggard in 2001 for the year 2000. In addition, the United Way and the Community Service Council of Central Indiana presented Electric Consumer the prestigious CASPER (short for Community Appreciation for Service in Public Enlightenment in Relations) Award for “sustained coverage of human services” for 1993.

Fueled by postal and paper cost increases in 1995, Electric Consumer underwent another major change. It stopped accepting advertising outside the cooperative family with the January 1996 issue to take advantage of postal savings for publications with less than 10 percent advertising. The result was a redesigned cover and a cleaner, more focused and consistent 16-page monthly publication. The ad-less Electric Consumer actually offered more editorial space for the same cost as the 24-page editions with 40 percent advertising that it produced throughout 1995.

Like all aspects of the changing electric utility industry, Electric Consumer is facing a number of challenges in the years ahead. A new series of focus groups on its future are about to commence which will once again look at every aspect of the publication and what its role might be in the new electronic medium — the Internet. While the 1990s electric utility deregulation debauchery died a quick death amid scandal, skyrocketing electric rates and electric shortages in the early 2000s, an increasingly widespread energy crisis continues.

It’s now more important than ever for consumers — who own their electric co-ops — to have a publication like the Electric Consumer to connect them to their utility and keep them abreast of the changes affecting their utility. And consumers can rest assured that their cooperative publication will not take lightly its role in informing them about their co-op, educating them about electric safety and energy efficiency and building a sense of community among all co-op consumers around Indiana — just as it has done — first as Indiana Rural News and then as Electric Consumer — for 50-plus years.

Go Back to Part IV — The 1980s
Go to Part I — The 1950s