In 2017, the Ministry of Environment Protection and Regional Development summarised all the information about the services available for families and offered by municipalities. To promote public participation in assessing the family support policy, a competition was organised to find out which is the most family-friendly municipality. In this competition, great emphasis was laid on the evaluation of the municipal services by families.

We developed a strategy and plan for an integrated information campaign to ensure the publicity of the competition “Family-friendly municipality” and public participation in this competition. The plan defines target audiences and messages, the creative solution for the campaign, and the suggested information channels and methods. The strategy provided for the following tactical tools: public relations, digital communication, advertising solutions, information materials, and special events. We also developed the visual identity of the competition and website structure.

The strategy was implemented by the following activities resulting in certain results:

• development and maintenance of the website vietagimenei.lv, including by offering the possibility to compare services offered by municipalities, events calendar, leisure map, preparation and publishing of news, competition results, and articles on the best municipal practices;
• from 2 to31 October 2017, the website vietagimenei.lv hosted a public vote on the most family-friendly municipality and assessment of the services available to families; altogether, over 50,000 votes were received;
• communication on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, draugiem.lv), including creation of social network profiles and attracting of followers (Facebook—962 followers, draugiem.lv—170 followers, Twitter—88 followers attracted during the three months of active campaign events), organisation of competitions to promote public vote, placing of advertisements on social networks, and maintaining everyday communication;
• media relations (press releases, initiation of interviews and broadcasts) resulting in close to 1.5 million media contacts (excluding Internet media);
• direct communication with target audiences, including NGOs, municipalities, and competition supporters.