What will succeed Jolly Good Soda as the Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin?

Date:2025-08-27 18:56:10 Category:US Views:1 Comment:0

Nominations have opened for the annual Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin celebration of Wisconsin's expansive manufacturing economy.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce and Racine-based Johnson Financial Group have partnered once again on the contest, which its 10th year highlighting manufacturers that WMC says contributes almost $74 billion and nearly 500,000 jobs to the state economy.

Nominations opened on Aug. 25 and will be accepted online at madeinwis.com now through Sept. 12. The contest does have a few rules and eligibility requirements, though.

More: What's next for Jolly Good? Limited-edition flavors and jokes on cans could be in future.

Jolly Good Soda was named the Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin for 2024. Jolly Good employees celebrated the award during Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce's annual Business Day event, on Oct. 17, 2024, in Madison.

'Coolest Thing' another first for Wisconsin

The state's business chamber and manufacturing association in 2016 made Wisconsin the first state to organize a contest to highlight the diverse products what companies and their workers make.

The contest, which is decided by several rounds of public voting, has honored a variety of products and companies that captures a wide slice of what Wisconsin makes. Voters have so far chosen motorcycle engines, high-tech military vehicles, kringle, sodas, robotic carts, rifles and massive construction cranes as Coolest Things.

“Wisconsin has the best manufacturers in the world, and it’s always our pleasure to highlight the fantastic — and truly cool — products they make,” said WMC CEO Kurt Bauer in a news release.

More: Fender, Gibson ... and Louscher? Meet the Wisconsin man who birthed a new kind of guitar

What are the Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin eligibility requirements?

The contest is meant to be fun and light-hearted way to celebrate manufacturing, but there are a few rules to know before you nominate something. To qualify, a product needs to:

Be made at a Wisconsin-based facility
Involve a manufacturing process (an example: mass-producing frozen pizzas qualifies, a restaurant making made-to-order pizzas would not)
Only product per company can make the top 16
Winning companies can't enter the next year and any product that's won cannot be nominated again

The nominating form requires basic information like the product name, company name, a description, a contact person at the company and an image of the product.

When can I vote in the Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin?

Nominations for this year's contest are open through Sept. 12 and will be followed by several rounds of voting to narrow the field of contenders. Here's this year's schedule:

Sept. 22-30: Popular vote determines this year's 16 Coolest Thing contenders
Oct. 1: Top 16 announced
Oct. 2-7: Top 16 face off in head-to-head votes
Oct. 8: Top 8 announced
Oct. 9-14: Top 8 face off in head-to-head votes
Oct. 15: Top 4 announced
Oct. 16-23: Popular vote to pick the winner
Oct. 23: Winner announced live during WMC's annual Business Day event in Madison.

Voting is open to the public. You can only cast one vote per day during open voting.

And if you try use bots or any other method to stuff the ballot box in an attempt to circumvent the one vote per device per day rule, WMC could opt to disqualify the nominee.

The annual Coolest Thing Made In Wisconsin debuted an updated logo in 2024.

Past Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin winners include Harley engines, Oshkosh Corp. trucks, Jolly Good Soda

Jolly Good Soda took its place last year in the Coolest Thing pantheon as the ninth product bestowed with the honor.

WMC since 2016 has asked voters to pick a "Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin" in order to highlight the state's manufacturing industry. Wisconsin's more than 9,000 manufacturing companies employ about 500,000 people and contribute almost $73.7 billion to the state economy.

Here's the past winners: