Team ThunderForce: How a Dino-Riding Hero Turns Humor Into Sales, With Gene McCoy and Patrick Wood

Incorporating humor into broadband marketing has skyrocketed sales at Co-Mo Communications over the past several years. How did dino-riding Chip Thunder go from a short-lived advertisement to a beloved character among subscribers? Listen to the story on this podcast episode!

Find Chip Thunder videos on YouTube.

Creators and Guests

Host

Andy Johns

Vice President of Marketing

What is The StoryConnect Podcast?

StoryConnect features interviews with marketers, communicators, CEOs and other leaders at cooperative and independent broadband companies, electric cooperatives and municipal power providers. The goal of the podcast is to help listeners discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers. It is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources.

Intro:
A production of Pioneer Utility Resources.

StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape
their stories and connect with their customers.

Andy Johns:
Who is Chip Thunder, and how can a dinosaur riding racing legend
who travels through time help sell broadband?

That's what we'll be talking about on this episode of The
StoryConnect Podcast.

My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer, and I'm joined on
this episode, a highly anticipated episode, I will say.

All right.

By Gene McCoy, who is the manager of marketing at Co-Mo Connect,
and Patrick Wood, who is the manager of Communications at Co-Mo.

Thank you all so much for joining me.

Gene McCoy:
A pleasure to be here. Yeah, thanks for having us.

Andy Johns:
We are recording live at the epicenter of rural broadband this
week at the Calix ConneXions 2024 Conference here at the Wynn in

Las Vegas. Had some great guests on here, but this one's going
to be a little different I'm betting.

Gene McCoy:
Might be a little different.

Patrick Wood:
Why? Nobody else was talking about a time traveling race car
driver with a dinosaur alien friend?

Andy Johns:
You know it hasn't come up.

Patrick Wood:
That's weird. I thought it was fairly common.

Andy Johns:
I mean anywhere you're going to have that conversation, Las Vegas
would be the one to do it, I guess.

But go ahead and introduce us to anybody who hasn't seen, and,
Gene, we can start with you.

But go ahead and introduce us, anybody who hasn't seen Chip
Thunder, and we'll go ahead and put links to some of the videos

in the show notes, but tell us who Chip is.

Gene McCoy:
Chip Thunder is a time traveling racing legend.

He travels through time meeting various, you know, time
traveling figures.

He's kind of an everyman.

Andy Johns:
Okay.

Gene McCoy:
He's a plug and play.

I mean, we've had him as a television court judge.

We've had him as an Olympic sprinter.

You know, we've had him as a professional wrestler.

So, I mean, he kind of is jack of all trades, master of all
trades, type of guy.

Andy Johns:
Master of all trades.

Patrick Wood:
Fits whatever whimsical idea we just came up with.

Gene McCoy:
There you go.

Patrick Wood:
There's really no out of place for Chip Thunder.

Gene McCoy:
Right. But that's one of the things that, you know, we wanted
flexibility, and we wanted fun.

And this guy, he kind of fits all of those boxes, you know?

He checks all of those boxes.

Andy Johns:
And so you guys are deploying Chip.

Everything is done in promotion of promoting Co-Mo Connect,
right?

Gene McCoy:
That's correct. Our broadband product.

That's what we're promoting with Chip Thunder.

You know, it kind of started back.

Well, it did start back in 2021.

We were looking for a, you know, mascot to represent our

upgrade deal. We were looking for a mascot to represent that
upgrade deal.

We started batting things back and forth.

One day, there were some people in our office talking about race
car drivers, stunt men like Evel Knievel and things

like that, and.

Andy Johns:
Definitely get an Evel Knievel vibe.

]

Gene McCoy:
If, I always like to say if you took Evel Knievel, Darrell
Waltrip, Super Dave

Osborne, and just put him in a blender, and then shook him up,
that's what would come out in your cup is Chip Thunder.

You know, maybe a little Tom Selleck with the mustache and stuff
like that.

So, yeah, that's what we were shooting for.

We were looking for something to promote that upgrade deal.

We had a three month upgrade deal, and we were thinking to
ourselves, you know, what can we do?

The first idea that came out that we were, Patrick and I, were
batting back and forth was the what if we put Co-Mo Connect

speeds into a race car engine?

And then the next thing you know, Patrick says, "Well, what if
he time traveled?"

Patrick Wood:
Because it's the next logical step.

Gene McCoy:
Yeah.

Andy Johns:
Right. Right.

Gene McCoy:
And so I'm like, "Oh geez, this is a great idea.

Let's keep running." And then the dinosaur came in.

He meets the dinosaur when he time travels.

And then, you know, we wanted to continue the storyline because
the first one took off.

We had like 15,000 views on the first YouTube video, and that
was without any ad backing really

whatsoever. And so we were like, "Oh heck, we have something
here."

Patrick Wood:
And we gotta up the ante on the weirdness scale on that next one.

So I mean, clearly the dinosaur eats the car and then gets the
power himself and rockets to Mars, right?

Andy Johns:
To be saved by Santa Claus.

I mean, yeah.

Patrick Wood:
The "Saved by Santa Claus" was actually a hilarious story.

We went to a Lions Club meeting, and there was a group of about
20, 50+ year old men there, and wasn't exactly the

demographic we thought Chip Thunder was going to gravitate
towards, but Chip's really beloved by all ages in actuality.

And we get there and all of them start asking, how's Chip going
to get off Mars?

And we were like, well, we didn't think that we had to do that,
but sure.

So we sent Santa Claus to save him.

Gene McCoy:
Like you do.

Patrick Wood:
That's the logical option for sure.

Gene McCoy:
And a really popular character is Meemaw Thunder.

She's made a brief appearance in the The Santa Claus video, and
we brought her back a few times since then,

and it just took off.

And we only thought that Chip Thunder was going to be around for
that deal only.

And we thought, okay, we're done with it.

And then he took off.

And here we are in late 2024 still doing Chip Thunder a couple
of years.

Andy Johns:
I mean a couple of years worth of content.

Patrick Wood:
Gene and I started about five years ago now at Co-Mo.

And ever since we got there, we've had a definitely more
whimsical tone when it comes to our ads.

Because as Gene always says, "You're in the entertainment
business.

You want to be memorable." Especially if you're just part of an
ad set of four different ads.

Even if they're not your competitors, they're your competitor
for ad space.

So we had some very whimsical ads.

We had stuff about pumpkin spice internet.

We had some pretty cute Christmas stuff, some pretty hilarious
Black Friday Thanksgiving stuff.

So this was more or less just another addition to that catalog
of whimsical ads, but

it kind of took on a life of its own, and we've continued to
progress that.

And it's been really amazing to see one, the success rate of how
that character can continue to

cultivate business for us, but also just in the communities that
we serve.

The fandom that it is garnished has been really amazing.

Gene McCoy:
It's always amazing to see how the people react to Chip Thunder
in public.

I mean, we've made, you know, we make a few public appearances a
year, and it's always a blast to interact with the

people, and it's always a blessing to see, oh my gosh, you know,
something that we created took off in that manner.

I from a, you know, you have to show results or else, you know,
you're just playing around.

And I always say, "Look, if you're in the marketing business,"
like Patrick just said, if you're in the marketing business,

you're in the entertainment business.

And two, you want to in the marketplace, you have to stand out.

You have to be the I always say pink mohawk in a sea of crew
cuts.

You know, you have to stand out.

And if you're just one of many, you're not going to get that
sale.

You're not going to be that memorable.

They're not going to remember your brand.

And that's the whole, you know, that's the whole point of all of
these things that we're doing.

Is it fun? Yes.

Is it funny? Yes.

But do they remember your brand, and do they associate your
brand with that fun?

Andy Johns:
Right, right. And there's so much to unpack to get into there.

But let's talk about the results a little bit first.

And then I want to get into the, you know, a little bit more
about the execution, how it happened.

You know, when I'm just looking through YouTube when I was
prepping, prepping for this episode, if you can call watching a

bunch of Chip Thunder videos prepping.

Patrick Wood:
That's doing your research.

Andy Johns:
I was doing, you know,

Gene McCoy:
Doing work.

Andy Johns:
It's a tough job. But, you know, the stats on these, I mean,
there's 14,000.

There's 17,000 views.

There's 11,000. I mean, this is good traction.

I mean, compared to what most anybody else is doing for videos
to sell broadband.

Gene McCoy:
Absolutely.

Andy Johns:
To announce that y'all are at a county fair.

What kind of results?

When did, I mean, you talked about the Lions Club, some of the
other anecdotes, but in terms of the numbers, you know, this has

to be beyond anything that you guys were guessing.

Gene McCoy:
He's beyond anything that we've created before or since.

He's had a 72,000 view YouTube video.

Andy Johns:
Wow.

Gene McCoy:
This last campaign, it was over 127,000 views across platforms.

Andy Johns:
Amazing.

Gene McCoy:
Yeah. And YouTube alone, we did about 80 grand, just between four
videos that we promoted by.

One in particular was 31,000.

Patrick Wood:
Those numbers are obviously phenomenal, but one of my favorite
things to hear, because Gene's always telling me the numbers.

He reads them off, absolutely loves them.

But one of my favorite to hear is that the the rate of people
skipping it is astronomically low.

So when an ad pops up, they don't skip it, they watch it.

They have the opportunity to continue on, to watch what they
wanted to watch, and they still just watch whatever Chip

Thunder.

Andy Johns:
You can't look away.

Patrick Wood:
Yeah, yeah. They're glued to it.

Gene McCoy:
Yeah. I don't know if it's akin to a car crash or not, but it is.

Patrick Wood:
It's a memorable, funny car crash.

Gene McCoy:
It's memorable. I will tell you that our VCR, our video
completion rates are 98%.

Andy Johns:
Wow.

Gene McCoy:
That's what. It's ridiculous.

I mean, I look at them, and you're almost like, is there
something wrong with the YouTube algorithm?

You know, and you look at it, and you do a double take.

And when you make those ads skippable, and they don't skip them,
it can be a shock to a lifelong jaded

marketer. You know, like I'm expecting to hit the, you know, 40
to 50 percentile.

And that's good. You know, you're killing it at that point.

And when you're hitting 98 on some of those videos, you're like,
oh my goodness, this is really a thing, right?

Andy Johns:
And just for perspective, what I spent all of my time watching
videos prepping for this.

But what size membership, or how many subscribers y'all have
just to kind of put those numbers in perspective?

Gene McCoy:
Okay. We have 34,000 subscribers, and we have about 60,000
eligibles.

So we've got a 64% take rate in our mature areas.

But we are constantly building.

I mean, we have averaged about 7,000 new passings every single
year.

So we're continuously adding folks.

And even when you add those folks in, we're sitting at a 61%
take rate, which is just insane for most cooperatives

when you're talking to them.

50 is good, and we're really blessed to have people gravitate
toward our brand and remember our

brand.

Andy Johns:
Most of the hits, most of the folks watching come from somewhere
geographically close.

Or are you're pretty far flung in the data on who's watching the
videos?

Gene McCoy:
And we narrow the cone.

We want to make sure that our message is reaching the people
that can act on our brand.

We don't want – of course, we get spillover.

I mean, we've had people from as far away as California and New
York.

Andy Johns:
You've got quite a few from Nevada here.

That'll be. I'll show up on those results.

Gene McCoy:
Right. I mean, Oregon, I mean, we have a lot of people that are
researching our brand and saying, "Hey, what are they doing?"

And that's another blessing to us.

I love marketers.

I think they're gods among men.

And I think that, you know, they deserve a lot of the credit for
the success that they're cooperatives are seeing in the

marketing space.

Some of them are fighting seven horse races.

Andy Johns:
I talked to somebody yesterday who had nine competitors.

Gene McCoy:
That's what I'm telling you.

Yeah. And you have to stand out in that marketplace.

You have to entertain.

Patrick Wood:
I feel like a lot of, especially co-ops with they're just getting
into it, have a bit of a "if you build it, they will come"

situation. You'll get some, but you're not going to get nearly
the take rate that you could.

Andy Johns:
You're not getting 62%.

Patrick Wood:
Yeah, exactly.

If you were advertising to them in a very entertaining way.

And I know that the entertaining way that we're doing, some
people look at that and say, "Oh, my board will never go for

that," but you don't know until you try.

The worst you can be told is no.

And I'd rather hear the no than assume a no.

So Gene and I have definitely developed some whimsical stuff
that have not necessarily challenged our board, but kind of

brought them along to a different understanding of what
marketing can be.

And it's definitely helped progress their confidence in what
we're producing, even if it's not necessarily their cup of tea,

even to the point where we're taking on more ambitious projects.

Even with Chip Thunder, being the sponsor, tell them about the
amphitheater, man.

That was cool

Gene McCoy:
Oh, yeah. We cut a deal with a concert venue in our area at the
Lake of the Ozarks.

It's a big concert venue.

They have people like Willie Nelson that play there.

Ice Cube.

I mean, they have.

Patrick Wood:
That was two. That was a big jump between.

Gene McCoy:
Yeah.

Andy Johns:
That was one concert with both of them.

Is that?

Gene McCoy:
I'm sure Willie wouldn't mind, I mean, you know.

But yeah, two genres there.

But I mean, that's kind of the wide range of musical acts that
they get in.

Bert Kreischer, his comedy tour.

They've set attendance records for some of those acts that come
in.

And we cut a deal with them to be the exclusive advertising
sponsor of

their refreshment beer area.

Their, you know, their food area.

They call it the Co-Mo Connect Plaza.

And Chip Thunder is all over that place.

Patrick Wood:
You can get a photo with a cutout of Chip Thunder and Snuggles
playing guitar and drums.

Gene McCoy:
That's true.

Patrick Wood:
Yeah, of course they're rock stars.

Gene McCoy:
Right, right.

Andy Johns:
And I'm sure Wi-Fi and everything that you guys are able to work
with them so they can.

Gene McCoy:
Oh, yeah. We have Wi-Fi across the entire venue, and the owner of
the venue

is a huge Chip Thunder fan.

Andy Johns:
As he should be.

Gene McCoy:
He wants a personal appearance.

Yeah.

Andy Johns:
So a couple of things I want to get into.

And this is really kind of the meat of the episode, the whole
reason I wanted to do it.

Patrick, you touched on it. I'm really glad that you got into it
because so many folks are going to see the videos, and they're

going to say exactly what you said.

You know, "My board won't go for this." How do you, but I think
it's more than just, "Hey, we're going to do a funny video."

Humor is so hard.

And we have folks that we work with that are like, "Hey, it's
April Fool's Day.

I want to do something funny." I'm like, well, nothing else
you've ever done has been funny.

Like, how are you going? Like a one-off, people aren't going to
get it.

Yeah, you kind of have to build that reputation.

So how does that, how does that go?

Talk us through that process.

Because, you know, one of the things you guys have done is I
understand there's a little bit been a little bit of turnover,

but you guys have stayed consistent with, you know, with the
tone, the character, all of that.

How do you go from from pitching that and getting people on
board, I guess let's start there.

What was that process like to tell people, "Hey, this is going
to sound weird, but just go with me on this journey."

Patrick Wood:
So, like I mentioned, I would rather get told no than to assume
that it's going to be a no, because you never know.

Maybe they'll surprise you, especially if you have a really
great idea.

And while I'm not, I am not advocating doing this, but we went
with a bit of a ask

forgiveness.

Gene McCoy:
I am above. I mean, I think that's a good, good plan.

Patrick Wood:
So we created our first handful of ads back in 2019, shortly
after we started.

And they weren't Chip Thunder, but they were in that genre.

We kept that humor going.

We had a little mouse reading the Christmas story about
uploading photos to Cheese Book.

We had a pumpkin spice internet was one that sticks out.

We had one for, we made fun of The Bachelorette.

Gene McCoy:
A monster under the bed about Wi-Fi.

Patrick Wood:
The monster under the bed was a great one.

So we made these ads in-house.

We write them. We record them, and then we send them out.

And then we play them for.

The board kind of got to hear some of those.

The funniest one that we say, we had an ad that we wrote.

It was for sports.

It was around basketball.

I am not a sports person, so I wrote this one kind of along that
genre of what if some strange person like

myself would sit down in a call booth to start calling out the
game?

So my character sits down and I just start saying, "Bradshaw has
the ball," and like going back and forth.

So our CEO's name is Aaron Bradshaw.

He heard that after it started playing on the radio, that's when
we played it for him.

So it's definitely an ask forgiveness situation.

But, our CEO and senior staff have a really great sense of
humor, and they're on board with it.

And our board also has a really great sense of humor.

They also know, and it's important to remind them that this
might not be their humor.

But we're also trying to reach different generations that have
different senses of humor.

And not everything is going to work for everyone.

So making sure that you're diversifying what you do, and we do
that.

So we do have a lot of jokes.

And Gene and I, we usually go with "You can touch the heart or
tickle the funny bone," and we try and tickle the funny bone

quite frequently. But we have a lot of different ads, campaigns
that do touch the heart.

We have a really great one that we're maybe even more proud of
than Chip Thunder.

Gene McCoy:
I think so. It's one of my favorites.

Patrick Wood:
That's called "Connect to Help," and we've raised over, well over
$100,000 for local charities using that campaign.

So we have a lot of fun with Chip Thunder.

But we do try and diversify that ad messaging in various ways to
make sure that we're reaching as many people as possible.

Gene McCoy:
And if I can say, show the metrics to the board, show the
results.

Because if you are just being whimsical and being fun and
there's no key performance indicators, if you can't

show them where it's made a difference in the business, you'll
never get buy in.

Patrick Wood:
Absolutely. When they say, "Hey, this is dumb," you can say,
"Well, being dumb works." Show him,

Gene McCoy:
Show him the sales are up 84% over the past four years.

So, I mean, you could say and Chip Thunder started in 2021.

We had the spike.

Here's what happened.

And you tell the story of the KPIs, and you take them through
that story, and then you can see the buy in.

You can start to see the buy in.

The last time I spoke to the board, they were wooing at me when
I came in.

And so I'm like, oh my goodness, we've won them over.

Andy Johns:
Yeah, right.

Patrick Wood:
Well, they've definitely come around.

They love that the chip thunder.

Andy Johns:
Well those results will help.

I'm going to move your microphone a little closer.

We're getting a little bit bigger crowd out here.

Gene McCoy:
Okay. Good.

Andy Johns:
Like we always say when we're recording these live episodes, it's
not background noise, it's ambiance.

Patrick Wood:
Nice.

Gene McCoy:
Right, there you go.

Andy Johns:
I'd like to get into to the consistency and the planning of it.

So, in the CTCU, The Chip Thunder Cinematic Universe.

Gene McCoy:
I love it.

Andy Johns:
How are you guys?

How far out? Sounds like some of these.

It's been kind of on a whim, taking the story in different
directions.

When the Lions Club asked you about, you know, how does it get
back?

What what kind of guardrails do you all have in place to kind of
keep things consistent?

Keep that similar tone?

Because I mean, doing this many years, it would have been very
easy for it to kind of lose the magic, lose the sizzle.

What have you all done, do you think, to keep it so consistently
strong and hitting the marks?

Patrick Wood:
Gene and I have a very similar sense of humor and short attention
spans.

Andy Johns:
Okay.

Patrick Wood:
So I think that's what really helps.

The jokes are always going to land the same because that's what
we think is funny.

And the whimsical variety of places that he drops into is
because of short attention spans.

And we're just like, hey, I had an idea this, like, let's make
them.

One of my favorites is a TV court judge, right?

Gene McCoy:
I just saw Judge Judy one day.

I was like, what if we – that's how all Chip Thunder videos
begin.

What if we did this?

Patrick Wood:
Yeah. So like you said, he had the watch judge Judy, one day.

I was driving in, and they were talking about AI on the news.

So I was like, what if AI wrote an ad for Chip, but the AI falls
in love with Chip.

Like, those are just like the things that pop into our head.

Then we get into the office and we're like, hey, Gene, I have
this idea.

What do you think? And like, yep, let's write it up.

Gene McCoy:
And then we play tennis with the idea, and then it comes out.

It makes it a lot easier because we are the actors, and we are
the voice talent.

Andy Johns:
Oh, is that breaking news? Are we going to?

This goes out on the internet.

You know this, right? Everybody's going to know.

Gene McCoy:
That's fine. Yeah, we are the actors in those spots.

And so yeah, it makes it a lot easier for us to maintain the
tone.

We know the character inside and out.

I mean, we created him.

We know why he is what he is.

From the loud voice, he's a race car driver.

He's around loud sounds all the time.

You know, to the mustache, to the helmet.

We even have a full on racing suit now.

I'm sure you saw that in the last ad.

Our graphic designer, Derek Wright, shout out to Derek.

He is incredible.

He designed the suit and K1, a legit racing suit company made
that suit for

us. So it's kind of cool.

It's kind of cool to see that happen.

And I'll share this information with you right now.

We're working with a production company out of Cleveland, Clum
Creative.

They've worked with Walmart.

They've worked with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

They worked with the Cleveland Browns, LeBron James.

They've worked with quite a few big name folks.

And they contacted us to want to work with us.

Andy Johns:
Oh, wow.

Gene McCoy:
And so we said, "Oh hey, we'll give it a shot." And so we went
into the studio with them here recently, about a month ago.

Patrick Wood:
Just less than a month. It's been a few weeks ago.

Gene McCoy:
It's been a few weeks. It's been a whirlwind few weeks for
Patrick and myself.

But, yeah, we filmed with them.

They've got us some final cut downs, and you'll be seeing those
ads pretty soon.

Patrick Wood:
And back to your question with that really great point was they
have a writer on staff, I mean, obviously, and he's quite

talented. He's quite talented.

Gene and I have started this character, and we wrote all of the
ads for it.

He had an idea for an ad, and he wrote it and sent it to us.

And it was like, it was Chip Thunder-ish, but it wasn't Chip
Thunder.

Gene McCoy:
The tone was off.

Patrick Wood:
Like it wasn't quite.

So I think really Gene and myself kind of keeping a close rein
on that, especially making sure that it's within the character

that we created. It's within what we think is funny because
that's been what's resonating.

So with some tweaks, we found a way to really make it an amazing
ad with the original concept.

But yeah, I think that's kind of coming back to, it's making
sure that it hits that same tone and quality.

Andy Johns:
I'm glad you all brought up the production company.

That was where I was headed next kind of.

And we're running a little long on time as I knew we would with
this episode.

Let's talk about the technical side of it.

So it sounds like now you're working with a production company,
but for the first few years, starting it.

What did you need from a technical standpoint?

Or are you guys working in a studio?

Patrick Wood:
No.

Gene McCoy:
Not even a little bit.

Patrick Wood:
No.

Gene McCoy:
Not even.

Patrick Wood:
We had, so we had a green screen that is maybe the width of this
table.

It's like a four. So if you're ever watching Chip Thunder
videos, and you're wondering why his hands kind of stay here,

Gene McCoy:
Just stay here.

Patrick Wood:
Cause I would be filming it, and I'd be like, Gene, gotta retake.

Hands in.

Gene McCoy:
I feel like a T-Rex myself sometimes with the green screen.

Patrick Wood:
We had only did so much.

And there was some even that the green, Gene's a tall fellow,
and the green screen only goes up so high.

So there was a couple of times where I had to rig it to where it
would be at least like a foot or two off the ground before I

pulled the green screen up.

Gene McCoy:
We have limitations.

Patrick Wood:
We've filmed in just like random empty offices that we could
find.

We've used a variety of different mics.

We have a similar kind of podcast setup in our office.

We've used some of those mics.

Gene McCoy:
The story about the first time we ever filmed the Chip Thunder
commercials.

We were in a small office with a green screen and an iPhone.

And so I was, we were taking a break.

And so Chip Thunder was not out in public.

People did not know who he was.

This was the first ad we had ever filmed.

And so I'm taking a break, and I go out, and I walk to go get
some water.

And I am in the call center, and I pass one of the mixers in the
call center.

And she looks at me and I go, "Hey, how are you doing?" And she
–

Patrick Wood:
Stranger danger.

Gene McCoy:
She thought that I had just been some guy who got in the security
door, and so she goes to one of the

other technical service reps who had been a former county
sheriff.

And she went and told him and told HR, and they were coming in
to take me down in this office.

Patrick Wood:
He was ready to tackle.

And I was ready to film it.

Gene McCoy:
I was midline, I was midline, and here comes Skylar through the
door.

And he's this giant, tattooed human being, and he's running
towards me.

And then all of a sudden the recognition comes up.

He goes. It's Patrick, it's Gene.

They're in there. "Oh, this is weird.

It's okay." And I thought I was going to die.

I thought I was going to die.

He was going to crush me.

Patrick Wood:
And I was a little bummed you didn't get tackled so I could put
it on.

Andy Johns:
Do it for the viewers.

Patrick Wood:
Yeah.

Gene McCoy:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. For the for the brand.

Andy Johns:
You mentioned iPhone.

You guys are filming at least in the beginning filming on
iPhones?

Patrick Wood:
We typically use iPhone with a just sitting on a tripod.

We've used various mics.

Most recently we, for the festival ones, we used a lav mic that
probably was a little bit close

to Chip, so.

Gene McCoy:
It's a little hot for Chip.

Hot mic.

Patrick Wood:
But yeah, we've used a bit of a hodgepodge of various things and
equipment that we have on hand, including

various lighting and key lights.

So we do put some.

There are definitely some lights, some green screens.

Once we get it all set up, it looks like a little makeshift
MacGyver studio.

Andy Johns:
There you go.

Patrick Wood:
But, yeah, the quality of continuing those, they've been very
successful in how we do that.

We typically will do it through Adobe Premiere to green screen
it out and do all the visual effects and everything that

again, we were doing that in house.

But yeah, with the production company, that's the next level.

Andy Johns:
Yeah, right.

Gene McCoy:
We have enough video production experience between the two of us
to be dangerous.

And so we were like, "Okay, I think it's time to call the pros
in on this one."

Patrick Wood:
Yeah. At some point, good enough is – you want to go beyond that.

Gene McCoy:
Well, it's mostly our time.

I mean, the bigger our cooperative gets, the less time that we
have to do these type of things.

And to have somebody to step in and say, "Hey, look, I can fill
that gap for you, and I can give you that expertise, and then

elevate the look and feel." That's just a no brainer to me
because, I mean, you want to you want to compete with the

Spectrums and Sockets and, you know, the big box companies of
the world, the Googles, you want to look like them.

You want to be like them. You want to be in the same spaces as
them.

That way you can see that, you know, your potential subscribers
can see that you're on a level playing field.

Andy Johns:
Right. That the service is legit too, not just the funny ads.

I get it, I get it for sure.

Well, let me close with this last question, Patrick.

I'll start with you and then Gene.

What advice do you have for somebody that's kind of listening to
this and thinking, you know, we could have fun.

Like, we could unbutton the top button a little bit.

What advice do you have for them to get started?

Patrick Wood:
Do it. Be whimsical.

Take that step.

I mean, and again, the worst anybody can tell you is no.

But dang it, make them say no.

I feel like everybody stops short of.

Oh, there's absolutely no way.

Make sure. Just double check.

Get told no.

Don't tell yourself no, just assuming that somebody else is
going to do it.

Andy Johns:
And then, Gene, what's the quote?

Everybody has a great plan until they get punched in the mouth.

You know what advice.

You know, maybe it doesn't take off the first 1 or 2.

What advice do you have for somebody as they're trying to feel
their way towards towards a lighter, more whimsical tone in their

their communication?

Gene McCoy:
Just be persistent.

If the first one doesn't take off, you know, try something
different.

You know, if humor is not your tone, try tugging at the
heartstrings.

I mean, you've got to find your brand.

You've got to say to senior staff, you've got to say to to the
board, who are we?

And what story do we want to tell?

In our case, it's like we're charitable.

That's what we do through Connect to Help and the $100,000 that
we've given to charities over the years.

And we tug at the heartstrings a little bit with that.

And then we're also fun, and we're funny.

We want to be that pink mohawk in the sea of crew cuts.

We have to be that.

And I would say push the envelope until it busts wide open.

Keep pushing, and then show key performance indicators to your
board and to senior staff.

Patrick Wood:
I would also suggest don't put all your eggs in one basket right
out the gate.

Just because we have Chip Thunder doesn't mean we're cutting
gold records one right after the other.

Gene McCoy:
Well, we are kind of.

Patrick Wood:
We did. This one right there.

Don't leave me hanging. Don't leave me hanging.

Oh, someone got it.

Gene McCoy:
There you go. Sorry, sorry.

Patrick Wood:
So when we first did these ads, and again, they weren't Chip
Thunder, they were just kind of funny ads.

We had, like, we had like, 3 or 4 that we had recorded, and we
pushed them all out.

And Gene has a really great structure.

If you ever, like, want to reach out for some marketing
information, Gene's your dude.

But he had as a strategy of how those went out.

But we didn't just say we recorded one funny one.

Let's see how it goes, and if it fails.

We had like 3 or 4, and they're not all going to be amazing.

Some might be better, more memorable than others, and you might
continue to use those.

But don't just try once and fail.

Try a few times and see how it goes.

Gene McCoy:
Plug in your passion.

Do what you think you would enjoy doing, because if you don't,
it's not going to be good.

If you're doing it to get subscribers.

It's not going to be good if you're doing it because you think
it's funny, or you think it'll tug at heartstrings, or it makes

you cry, then do it.

Because it will resonate with people who are trying to buy your
product.

And that's the important thing.

Andy Johns:
But just like Patrick said with web videos, not all podcasts are
amazing, but some of them certainly are.

So appreciate you Patrick and Gene, both for being on with me
this episode.

Gene McCoy:
It was our pleasure.

Patrick Wood:
Yeah, thanks. It was awesome.

Gene McCoy:
Thank you.

Andy Johns:
He is Patrick Wood. He is Gene McCoy.

They're both with Co-Mo Connect in Missouri.

I'm your host, Andy Johns with Pioneer.

And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro:
StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a
communications cooperative that is built to share your story.