About the client

The City of Perth received matched funding from the Australian Government for the $2.6 million Smart Cities program which included four core projects - Smart Precinct (implementation of smart CCTV), Smart Sustainability (dashboard displaying City data), Smart Irrigation (roll-out of smart controllers to improve water consumption) and the Open Data Portal (an outward-facing portal for data sharing).

These projects were supported by a Citizen Science Project, which saw collaboration between the City, and secondary and tertiary education institutions.

The Brief

Market Creations Agency prepared an overarching communication plan and stakeholder engagement plan including tactics for output internally and externally, by project, by month. The aims of the project were to improve public perception of the program, reduce negative media reports and increase engagement and buy-in of stakeholders.

Events and Activation

Market Creations Agency managed multiple events and activations for the City of Perth Smart Cities Program, including a City of Perth “Smart Cities activation space” for the Perth TEDx event. Another major event was the launch of the Citizen Science Project which allowed the City of Perth to showcase all the Smart Projects that were under development at the time. For this event, Market Creations Agency prepared an event plan which required coordination across multiple City of Perth business units. Market Creations Agency also coordinated with media attendees and City of Perth media personnel to ensure consistency of messaging.

Stakeholder Engagement

Market Creations Agency prepared an extensive Strategic Stakeholder Engagement Plan for the City of Perth Smart Cities Project. This included the mapping of engagement objectives by stakeholder with associated measures, risk assessment and proposed mitigation strategies, preparation of key messages, engagement tactics, implementations plans and evaluation plans.