The City of West Hollywood was honored with four awards recognizing excellence in communications by the City-County Communications and Marketing Association (3CMA). The awards were presented at 3CMA’s Savvy Awards on Sept. 5, which was held in conjunction with 3CMA’s 31st annual conference in Denver, Colo. The awards recognize the communications and outreach efforts of local governments throughout the United States.
“The City of West Hollywood raises our creativity to new levels to effectively communicate our messages to a variety of audiences across multiple platforms,” said West Hollywood Mayor John D’Amico. “I’m thrilled to see that 3CMA has, with these four awards, embraced the culture and diversity of our community as we tell the stories of our city.”
3CMA conferred its digital interactive Savvy Award for Overall Website to the City of West Hollywood for www.weho.org, the city’s official website. In 2017, the city embarked on a year-long process of redesigning its website. The goal was to achieve a design that would celebrate the vibrant energy and cultural diversity of West Hollywood. “Every facet of the design was meant to meet the needs of its audience while projecting the heart and soul of the city,” says an announcement of the awards from the city. In presenting the award, the judges noted, “The City of WeHo continues to show other cities how it’s done! This is one of the best websites I have seen in a long time.”
The City of West Hollywood’s One City One Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival marketing materials took home the nation’s top city/county award for Graphic Design Marketing Tools with the judges saying they were, “…very impressed with the results and outreach … beautiful poster design, powerful yet simplistic.”
The City of West Hollywood was also awarded two 3CMA Award of Excellence honors. The first recognition was for the promotional video “I Sing the Body West Hollywood,” of which the judges said, “Innovative piece with unique storytelling and beautiful graphics. Great job on combining lyrics and animations … the video not only tells the story but makes you feel as if you know the city, even if you have never been there.” The five-minute animated music video for social media combines crowd-sourced lines of poetry with animated imagery.
Former city Poet Laureate Kim Dower created the poem in homage to Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric.” The poem paints a vivid picture of West Hollywood as a place that offers community members a sense of belonging. It became the inspiration of an artwork by Miguel Andrisani that was installed at West Hollywood City Hall.
The second Award of Excellence recognized the city’s video public service announcement, “Recreational Reefer Madness.” The City of West Hollywood has a long record of supporting cannabis use for medicinal purposes, and, more recently, in supporting adult-use cannabis. Along with this new culture came issues of where and how to buy and use cannabis in the city, as well as misunderstandings regarding public consumption and of state laws regarding driving under the influence.
3CMA is the nation’s premier network of local government communicators. The Savvy Awards recognize outstanding local government achievements in communications and public-sector marketing. More than 700 entries in 40 categories were received. For additional information about 3CMA, please visit www.3cma.org.
The City of West Hollywood, through its Communications Department and Communications Director Lisa Belsanti, has been honored with dozens of awards in recognition of its innovative communications and marketing approach and its effectiveness in engaging with the community.
Congratulations to the city of West Hollywood. We should celebrate when our fair city is recognized for its good works. I pity the cold and timid souls who constantly criticize everything the city and community activists do to make West Hollywood a world class city. These folks seem to relish in the role of standing on the sidelines jeering and criticizing while contributing nothing towards making the world a better place. I’d much rather stand on the sidelines cheering for others to succeed than tearing down their achievements. Reminds me of the Brene Brown quote from Daring Greatly: “It is… Read more »
big deal. police our streets……..and do something we can see as positive. communication awards??????
Well that’s quaint. Bravo to Ms. Belsanti and the rest of the communications bureaucracy. What does this have to do with the daily quality of our lives as residents? Does this solve the homeless crisis? Does this bring affordability to housing? Does this mitigate traffic nightmares? Does this make the parking fiasco that is WeHo parking regulation and enforcement tolerable? Does this mitigate the dangers that out-of-control motorized scooters and bikes pose to pedestrian right of way? Why are we paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a communications department and infrastructure that feeds the glitz that feeds the developers?… Read more »