Hollywood came to Butler County in northeast Iowa this past summer in the form of Harvest Creative Services (Harvest) from Lansing, Michigan.
Butler County REC was chosen as the host cooperative for the Touchstone Energy® Cooperative’s annual ad shoot, which took place in June. Before the shoot, however, there were numerous phone calls, emails – 825 in total – meetings, text messages and a week in May scouting locations for the five scenes.
Behind the scenes of a major production
Anne Gardiner, public relations specialist with Butler County REC, and Marena Fritzler, marketing director with Corn Belt Power Cooperative, spent the week with Harvest. It was a full week that included new opportunities, making grilled cheese sandwiches for one scene, shooting scenes numerous times (the first scene alone took 31 takes), making last-minute adjustments, long days and short nights, and a lot of camaraderie.
Cooperation among cooperatives on full display
The ad was also a nod to cooperation among cooperatives, one of our seven cooperative principles. The first scene was shot at Grundy County REC with lineman Derek Snakenberg driving the REC truck. Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative sent three volunteers – Ryan Craig, CEO and Touchstone Energy board member; Katie Harris, communications specialist; and Jen Sievert, vice president of customer and corporate relations.
“It was an epic, one-of-a-kind experience, learning from the production crew on set, photographing the journey, and helping behind the scenes,” said Fritzler. “The magic of this creation came to life the way it did with the collective strength of many. It was neat to see local employees and board members from Butler County REC, Grundy County REC and Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative step up and into this production.”
Creativity, improvisation and a memorable experience
Interestingly, appliance finishes ultimately determined the filming location for the kitchen scene. A couple of Butler County REC employees offered their own kitchens for filming, but during location scouting, the production team determined the finishes and reflections in co-op employees’ refrigerator doors when opened were not the right fit for the envisioned transition into the hand-drawn bucket truck. Production crews found the winning refrigerator in a local rental property in Shell Rock, where the kitchen scene was filmed.
Improvising is also a hallmark of ad shoots. When the Harvest team was searching for a table for the kitchen scene, Gardiner offered her kitchen table. Fritzler and Gardiner disassembled the table to get it through doors, loaded it onto an REC truck, covered it due to impending rain and headed to the scene, where the crew unloaded it. After the scene was shot, the table was loaded back onto the truck and covered with a tarp. Rain was definitely on its way.
Fritzler and Gardiner then went back and forth on whether the table should be housed at Butler County REC’s CEO Craig Codner’s home or driven back to Gardiner’s home. They decided to drive the table to Gardiner’s and unload it. The decision proved to be the correct one — it sprinkled, but the table remained unscathed.
The ad, released during the Touchstone Energy annual meeting on Nov. 19, is the centerpiece of Touchstone’s 2026 national campaign, “The Cooperative Advantage.” With more than 100 co-op members, employees and actors, this was Touchstone Energy’s largest production to date. It also has the distinction of being the only ad in eight years in which shooting days had to change to accommodate weather. Click here to watch the :30 commercial on Vimeo.
“Touchstone Energy and Harvest Creative Services were great to work with,” Gardiner said. “Butler County REC was proud to be the host for the 2026 ad campaign. It was an amazing opportunity that we are so grateful to have been a part of. I learned so much and had the best time. I also don’t look at commercials or movies the same way I used to!”
