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Objective

To increase awareness of, and participation in, community engagement for the Town’s Strategic Community Plan.

Project

Design and delivery of a two-phased, community-wide engagement campaign to drive participation in consultation for the Strategic Community Plan.

Results

A high-visibility, community-based campaign with strong local engagement, broad reach, and a significantly improved response rate compared with previous consultations.

Every four years, each local government is required to revise its Strategic Community Plan.

The Town of Bassendean sought to engage residents to take part and provide input through a two-phased approach to consultation and engagement, beginning with a mass engagement phase to gather broad community views before more detailed facilitated discussions.

We were engaged to lift the quality and effectiveness of this consultation, as previous efforts had generated limited participation. We began with a thorough analysis of past engagement activity to understand barriers to involvement and opportunities for improvement.

From this, we created a distinctive campaign brand, “We Need Your Views,” designed to be immediately recognisable and consistently visible throughout the consultation period.

A bold yellow colour palette was deliberately chosen to stand out in Bassendean’s leafy, green environment and to ensure high visibility across outdoor media, local noticeboards, print, and digital channels.

Alongside the creative campaign, we designed a program of community drop-in sessions at local venues to enable face-to-face engagement and more personal connection to the issues. In parallel, we invited feedback through an accessible online survey hosted on a dedicated research platform, supported by a purpose-built campaign microsite.

Awareness was driven through a multi-channel approach, including a postcard mailed to every household, signage on major roads, council venue displays, council website and social channels, local newsletter coverage, and in-person activations at shopping centres and markets.

The campaign achieved strong, measurable engagement. A total of 1,192 completed responses were received, representing 7.36% of the Town’s population, a substantially higher level of participation than previous consultations Importantly, 454 respondents (38%) also registered their interest to take part in Phase 2 workshops, demonstrating deep ongoing engagement.

Following the engagement phase, we collated, analysed, and synthesised all survey data and qualitative feedback into a comprehensive report for Council, translating community sentiment into clear insights to inform the next stage of strategic planning.

Overall, the project demonstrated how strong campaign branding, multiple engagement touchpoints, and accessible participation methods can generate stand-out in a local context, build trust, and deliver significantly higher levels of meaningful community input into civic decision-making.

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