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SFPUC Continues Winning Streak for Public Power Communications Awards

Becky Alderete, Power's Customer Engagement Manager, with Joe Gehrdes, Director – External Relations, Huntsville Utilities, Alabama; and Vice Chair, Customer Connections Section.
  • Jackie Randazzo
Joe Gehrdes, Director – External Relations, Huntsville Utilities, Alabama; and Vice Chair, Customer Connections Section.
Becky Alderete, Power's Customer Engagement Manager, with Joe Gehrdes, Director – External Relations, Huntsville Utilities, Alabama; and Vice Chair, Customer Connections Section.

The American Public Power Association (APPA) has once again recognized the SFPUC for outstanding public power communications for 2023.

Our City. Our Power, the agency’s public power expansion campaign, received an Excellence in Public Power Communications Award in the print and digital category, while Break Up with Gas, which promoted the benefits of at-home electrification, received an award of merit in the web and social media category.  

The awards were announced in October and presented at the annual APPA Customer Connections Conference in San Antonio, Texas on November 15. Power’s Customer Engagement Manager Becky Alderete accepted the award on behalf of the SFPUC. 

 

About the Campaigns 

Our City. Our Power. billboard

Our City. Our Power. 

The Our City. Our Power. campaign educates San Franciscans about the benefits of public power and the numerous challenges currently posed by Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E). The campaign urges San Franciscans to support public power expansion in San Francisco. 

Earlier this year, Our City. Our Power. initiated a paid advertising campaign that utilized billboards, Muni shelter spots, and digital ads to raise awareness of public power in various neighborhoods along the southern border of the City and County of San Francisco in advance of an environmental review process. The campaign featured neighborhood imagery and uplifting messaging to capture interest and helped drive thousands of visits to the OurCityOurPower.org campaign website. Across print and digital channels, the campaign delivered more than 10 million impressions (i.e. views).  
 

Break Up With Gas ad.

Break Up with Gas 

In April, CleanPowerSF, one of the agency’s clean power programs, launched a campaign to promote a rebate for an electric heat pump water heater and to raise awareness about the benefits of at-home electrification. The campaign used playful graphic imagery and messaging to encourage residents to “move on” from their toxic relationships with appliances powered by natural gas. The paid advertising portion of the campaign leveraged social media ads and EV charging station display ads to spread the message. The campaign drove traffic to newly created landing pages on CleanPowerSF.org that feature educational information about heat pump water heaters and helpful resources for going all-electric.  

 
A Winning Agency 

This is the fourth and fifth Excellence in Public Power Communications Awards given to the SFPUC. In addition to this year’s honors, the agency was recognized in 2022 for Our City. Our Power., in 2019 for the Celebrating 100 Years of Clean Power Campaign, and in 2018 for digital advertising to San Francisco businesses being enrolled in CleanPowerSF. 

Congratulations to all, and especially to our SFPUC colleagues who have been working behind the scenes to push public power expansion and electrification forward!