LARNED — Friday night, the Larned community turned out for the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the Courthouse lawn. City officials also picked that moment to share some love, and announced the second step in a marketing campaign designed to brand Larned and Pawnee County as a caring and progressive place to live, work and play. The public was invited to check out the latest video created by Bajillion Agency and available for viewing now on the city website and at lovelarned.com.
“Thursday, we sent out a love letter to all City of Larned utility customers announcing this next step,” Larned Mayor William Nusser said in a telephone call to the Great Bend Tribune on Monday. The letter, is written from the perspective of Larned itself, poetically spells out how it feels about its citizens.
“Whether our time together has been short or a lifetime, it is made better by the fact that we are together,” it reads. Then, it outlines three things the citizens can do to express their love for their community: by expressing love through what they say, how they serve and how they spend.
“You make me whole. You make the whole world better. I am because you are. Love, Larned.”
The roughly two-and-a-half minute video “Love Larned” can be viewed on the city’s Facebook page and at lovelarned.com. Several Larned community members read from the letter, and then share their memories of writing and receiving love letters and their feelings about the community where they live.
Last year, the city and county partnered with the Bajillion marketing agency and released a series of short videos that shared highlights of the communities and also Larned State Hospital, in a campaign called “Larned Cares.” It too, was launched with a public viewing of the videos at the Larned State Theater.
“They were a 20,000 foot view of the communities, where this and the next few videos will be a closer, more detailed look,” Nusser said. “We’re excited about it.”
So far, there have been over 9.000 online views, of which Nusser is pleased. Feedback from the community indicates it is has been well received, he said.
Nusser hopes the citizens of Larned will forge more personal connections with one another and the retailers there, and it will spillover to visitors and those contemplating a move to the communities of Pawnee County.
