Videos promoting plans and heritage month posters were chosen from 6,500 entries to win platinum and gold awards
SILVER SPRING, MD – The Montgomery County Planning Department, part of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, has won three MarCom Awards and three MarCom honorable mentions, as judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. The competition organizers received about 6,500 entries from more than a dozen countries and honored the Planning Department’s Communications team with top awards.
“Winning these awards validates our recent push to expand our messaging through video and social media,” says Planning Director Gwen Wright. “We have been seeking more creative ways to communicate our planning goals to the public and these honors prove we are moving in the right direction.”
The team won a platinum award for the Bicycle Master Plan promotional video. The video is part of a recent effort to communicate the goals of current County plans to the public through YouTube postings on the Planning Department’s web site.
According to the awards sponsor, platinum winners are recognized for their excellence in terms of quality, creativity and resourcefulness. About 16 percent of entries won this award.
Gold awards went to the Department’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month poster and This Place Matters promotional video about the benefits of historic preservation. Gold awards were presented to those entries judged to exceed the high standards of the industry norm. About 23 percent of entries were gold winners.
The Planning Department was also awarded honorable mentions for its Black History Month Celebration poster and Just Getting Started promotional video about recent planning efforts in Montgomery County. Another honorable mention recognized the Department’s Once and Future County Speakers Series campaign for publicizing lectures on the history of planning in the County that were held during 2014 and 2015.
These MarCom Awards are the first won by the Planning Department since 2013 and represent the efforts of the newly reorganized Communications division since 2014.