Third award in three months for Waipā
11 September 2018
Waipa District Council has won its third award in as many months for innovative communication.
Last night in Auckland Waipā scooped the ALGIM Best Digital Service Award for work on its 10-Year Plan. It beat Matamata-Piako District Council, Taranaki Regional Council and Whanganui District Councils.
Waipā's acting communication and engagement manager Nicole Nooyen said the communications team had pushed out the boat to engage residents and ratepayers online about Council's proposals for the next decade.
Staff developed a stand-alone website, used virtual reality goggles, created specific content for social media channels and developed videos and an animated video series. For the first time, the team created a bilingual video (Te Reo Māori/English) discussing proposed investment in the district's heritage sites.
Nooyen said the digital campaign kicked off well in advance of formal consultation, giving the community time to consider the issues and provide feedback in a way that best suited them.
Because of our digital tactics, we saw a massive increase in submissions and informed feedback. We reached more than 389,000 people just via Facebook and had more than 10,000 direct interactions about what was proposed, Nooyen said.
In July the Council won the Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) Fulton Hogan Excellence Award for its work in sharing and promoting Waipa's history. Last month Waipā was one of only three Councils highly commended for their 10-Year Plan consultation documents by the Society of Local Government Managers (SOLGM).