The City of Joondalup has been selected as an ABA100 Winner for Comms Excellence in The Australian Business Awards 2022.
The Australian Business Award for Comms Excellence [COM] recognises organisations that have successfully implemented initiatives that demonstrate excellence in communications.
The City received the award for an innovative Valentine’s Day 2022 promotional and publicity campaign, where Field Officers hit the Joondalup City Centre with a new love-themed style of caution notice.
The notice featuring a quirky poem, a social media hashtag, a pay it forward message, and most importantly, no fine.
The City coincided the promotion with a strategically targeted media campaign which resulted in talkback radio coverage, a story on Channel 7 news in Perth, and features in local newspaper Perth Now as well as their online arm.
The story was received positively by the community, with an overwhelming number of likes, loves, shares and positive comments on various social media channels
The City received an advertising space rate (ASR) or unpaid media of almost $50,000. The #Nofinetoday hashtag generated social media interest, and the combined Facebook channels of 7 News Perth, Perth Now and City of Joondalup resulted in a combination of 446 likes, comments, and shares.
LinkedIn posts resulted in a combination of 533 likes, comments, and shares. Eastern states local governments also tagged in comments, including the Lord Mayor and CEO of City of Melbourne, and other high-profile local governments executive and elected members from across Australia, with Joondalup setting the bar for peer local governments to follow.
Joondalup Mayor Albert Jacob said the Valentine’s Day initiative was in line with a change in approach to parking offences at the City, with a focus on education rather than enforcement.
“The restructure of the Rangers, Community Safety and Parking Team was the ideal time for the City to look at making a change away from parking enforcement in favour of education,” Mayor Jacob said.
“This resulted in the recruitment of fifteen Field Officers with a focus on customer service experience, to replace the traditional Rangers and Parking Inspector roles.
“This helped us to implement cultural changes that saw a shift away from a strict law enforcement approach towards a greater emphasis being placed on educating and informing the community.
“I congratulate all involved in this great success story for the City, particularly our Community Safety and Communications and Stakeholder Relations teams.
“It is testament to the professionalism and expertise of our team at the City that they have beaten many marketing and PR agencies and private businesses across Australia who entered these awards.”
Further unique communication strategies will be undertaken following the success of the Valentine’s Day communications campaign.
