This is Holland, One Holland

Community: City of Holland
Population: 10,000+

The Governor’s “Stay Home – Stay Safe” executive order was enacted on March 15, 2020. In times of crisis, communities look to their leadership for cues, answer questions and ease their fear of the unknown. There was an urgency to reassure residents that City leaders were working to keep Holland going. Buildings may have closed, but essential services remained. The City created a video series to communicate with residents and Mayor Bocks stepped up to be the voice of the City. The goal was to reassure residents their leaders were committed to keeping Holland running, keep people safe, and bring the community together to help one another. The first video was recorded, produced, and released on the City’s website and social media pages on March 16, one day after the Executive Order was in place. Two videos were produced and posted to social media weekly through June 19, 2020.


Replicability:

Creating a video series to communicate a broad message to the community would be easy to replicate. Using the City as the backdrop for each video, no special staging was necessary. The place was determined based upon the Mayor’s message for each particular video. They were produced by the City's Communications Team and using existing in-house equipment.

Creativity and Originality:

The mayor of a city speaking to the community may not be original. However, Mayor Bocks’ messages were original. The individual messages were timely and relevant to what was taking place in the early weeks of the pandemic. The messages were written in his own words since he was the person talking to the community. In many of the videos, Mayor Bocks wore orange and blue, the City of Holland’s colors. The places where each video was recorded were relevant to that specific message. Mayor Bocks even ended each message with the phrase he coined, “This is Holland, One Holland, and we get to live here.”

Community Impact:

The video series was posted on the City’s website and social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Nextdoor) to reach a broad audience. The Mayor’s messages were translated into Spanish and, English and Spanish versions were posted on the website. The response from the community was overwhelmingly positive. The community saw and heard from the Mayor twice a week, reassuring them, “the City of Holland does not close,” essential services would remain operational, and that “together we’ll get through this.” The messages from Mayor Bocks were spoken from the heart as a leader of Holland.

Back to Main Entry Page>

 

Share this page!

Facebooktwitterlinkedin

 

Project Multimedia: