Excellence in Brand 2020 Cornerstone Co-op

Excellence in Brand Development
Cornerstone Co-op is truly about people, and through our teamwork, commitment and integrity, we’ve been making life better in our communities for 100 years. In the spirit of Co-operation, our Co-op provides goods and services and makes a difference in members lives. What Cornerstone Co-op means in the hearts and minds of our owners, employees and customers is our Brand.
A genuine leader of the communities we serve, we communicate our brand of care, responsiveness, connection and trust and throughout the pandemic, we lived our Brand daily. Our decisions were led by our purpose: to make life better through thoughtful, informed discussion at all levels, to best respond to our communities’ needs.
Leadership. Our Pandemic Team met daily to scenario plan and organize the execution of the Confirmed Case Toolkit protocol that allowed for a swift response to any confirmed case. When a positive case presented itself, we were able to act quickly - perform deep cleans, contact tracing, and isolations while providing transparency to customers.
Care. Our first priority was to safeguard our Team’s safety and resiliency. Cornerstone locations were the first in our local markets with greeters and customer limits, plexiglass screens at checkouts, and physical distancing floor dots. Regular team communications and reduced operation hours alleviated anxieties and bolstered our employee experience. Without our team healthy and happy, we can’t properly serve our communities to the level they are required. We implemented mandatory masks for employees in August and customers in November - to minimize transmission and offer a sense of safety, trust and transparency to our employees and customers.
To incorporate fun and calmness into our workspaces, we introduced Project Positivity, which included virtual guest speakers to engage our team leaders and Dress up days for frontline team. We celebrated our frontline workers in a Heroes Campaign, Graduation for our Team graduates, and gave appreciation gift cards and coupons for the Team for all their hard work.
Building Connection. Our goal was to serve through positive, welcoming, effective, and consistent experiences. We implemented enhanced delivery services, exclusive senior and immunocompromised shopping hours, online ordering, and buying limits, and positive responses flooded in on our social media. Reactions that encouraged us to continue our efforts to keep our communities safe.
Where we could pivot, in-person events quickly became online events.
• Our well-attended Wine Clubs turned into Zoom Wine Events and continue to draw consistently exceptional numbers with high praise.
• Partnering with Discovery & Riverbend Co-ops, we hosted a Zoom Tri-Co-op Liquor Event that successfully involved attendees from all three Co-ops, difficult under normal circumstances, but ultimately strengthening Co-op’s brand.
• Our spring AGM was postponed and evolved into COVID-friendly occasion.
• we offered Drive Thru Flu Shots at our Vermilion Pharmacy.
• As the Holiday Season approached, we embraced the online technology we were using for internal communications into an opportunity to further build connections with our Kids Club and presented Zoom with Santa - where children and their families could have facetime with The Big Guy, in the safety of their own homes for free.
Our legacy members in nursing homes were certainly the hardest hit during the pandemic with little to no visitation. An existing Tree Buddy program - Christmas Caring - proved to provide a perfect occasion for community members to support our Seniors in care with a small Xmas gift, and build community connections.
Our General Manager and Director of Operations spearheaded a Virtual Social Hour to stay connected with the Retail Co-op colleagues and focus on sharing ideas and supporting each other during this time.
Trust. Every interaction with our team and stores brought a sense of safety and security to our customers, which enhanced our Cornerstone Brand value. Heightened fears about virus transmission were met with our usual friendliness and an assuredness that calmed employees and customers. Clear branded communication including in-store signage, radio ads, and social media posts spoke further to our sincere effort to differentiate Cornerstone Co-op as the community leader. Our COVID-19 communication website releases kept our communities informed with transparent and clear messaging that spoke to our commitment through our 15 positive COVID-19 cases.
Throughout these uncertain times, Cornerstone focused on brand and led locally and within the CRS with purpose to ensure that our team and customers felt safe, connected and trust in Co-op. Through our team engagement, collaboration, actions, execution, and open communications, our employees and customers illustrated trust in their Co-op brand, which advanced how we make life better in our communities.