Brand and communication agency for municipalities
From brand strategy and positioning to concept, campaign, website and online marketing.
Schwung is a Dutch brand and communication agency based in Tilburg, working with municipalities and public organisations across the Netherlands. You have to reach every resident, with a limited budget and strict requirements. Schwung is a communication agency for government and municipalities: from brand and campaign to accessible websites that work for everyone.
Why a communication agency that knows government?
The public sector has its own rules: you reach not a niche but all residents, you meet statutory accessibility requirements, and you often work through a tender with a fixed budget and public accountability.
An agency that already knows that context doesn't have to learn it first. Schwung has worked for municipalities, a GGD and public institutions for years. We make communication that is clear, accessible and recognisable, and that you can justify internally and to your board.
And precision matters: around 2.5 million adults in the Netherlands have difficulty with reading, writing or digital skills, according to Stichting Lezen en Schrijven. Clear, accessible communication is therefore not an extra, but the core of reaching everyone.
Concept, campaign and everything that follows from it
A participation process or a policy vision only becomes real once residents run into it: on a billboard, in the letterbox, on a banner in the neighbourhood, in their timeline. We make that ourselves, from first sketch to print-ready file, and we deliver it within the constraints of budget, legitimacy and planning.
Concept
The idea that holds everything together. For Hilvarenbeek an abstract vision on social policy became one warm story residents recognised.
Campaign
Public information, participation, awareness, elections and recruitment. Online and offline, from neighbourhood to whole municipality.
Identity and design
Logo, colour, typography, imagery and illustration. A style that holds up even when a policy officer makes their own slide deck.
Materials
Resident letters, leaflets, billboards, banners, construction-fence graphics, decoration in the town hall, giveaways.
Production
Photography and film in the municipality itself, illustration, animation and print supervision. Your own residents in the picture, not stock photos.
Online
Accessible website or platform, careers environment, social templates and advertising. The same concept, translated to the screen.
Five things we help municipalities and public organisations with
What the municipality stands for, before anything is designed
A coalition agreement is not yet a brand. The foundation is the question of what genuinely characterises this municipality or organisation, for residents, businesses and staff, and why anyone should believe it. We gather that from the executive, civil servants and residents, not from the policy memo alone.
- Brand research, inside and out, with the sector as a mirror
- Core values a front-desk colleague can explain
- Brand story for residents, businesses, partners and staff
Being something the neighbouring municipality is not already
Service delivery, sustainability and housing come first almost everywhere. Positioning means choosing what characterises your place and daring to say it. That includes how the municipal brand, programme brands and campaign labels relate: how much of a face of its own does a multi-year programme get?
- Baseline: where do you stand relative to comparable municipalities?
- Brand promise and audience choice, with evidence underneath
- Brand architecture for municipality, programmes and campaigns
Concept, campaign, design, materials and production
This is where the work happens that residents recognise you by. For Gemeente Tilburg we made the election campaign, for Gemeente Hilvarenbeek the campaign story around the reform of social policy, and for Duurzaam Hilvarenbeek the visual identity of a multi-year municipal programme.
- Creative concept and campaign platform
- Visual identity, imagery, illustration and photography
- Every material, from resident letter to billboard, online and offline
- Recruitment communication and employer brand, from campaign to careers site
A site every resident can use
For government organisations digital accessibility is a legal requirement: WCAG and the EN 301 549 standard. With us that is the foundation, not a check afterwards. On top of that comes the question that more often goes wrong: is the structure built around what a resident comes to do, or around how the organisation is arranged?
- Question-led structure for residents, businesses and partners
- Accessibility to WCAG and EN 301 549, from the foundation up
- A CMS and integrations you can manage yourself
- Content and clear plain language, written at B1 and tested
Being found by the resident who needs to arrange something, and by AI
Residents search concretely and locally: a permit, an appointment, an arrangement. Increasingly they put that question to an AI system rather than to Google, which then answers on the municipality’s behalf. At which point it matters rather a lot that the answer is correct and comes from your site.
- Local findability on the questions residents actually ask
- Findability in AI answers, from your own sources
- Campaigns for information, participation and recruitment
We do not guess about municipalities, we have read them
For the Schwung Brand Landscape (Merkbeeld) Municipalities we read the websites of 27 Dutch municipalities on brand promise, theme, audience and evidence. That research is not a product we sell, it is the material we start a concept with. The research itself is published in Dutch: Schwung Merkbeeld Gemeenten 2026.
carry a brand promise as a tagline, and for 10 of 27 no promise could be established on the site at all. 25 of 27 position themselves broadly. Distinction here is still almost entirely open ground.
writes at language level B1, while a municipality has to reach every resident, including the 2.5 million who struggle with reading. For 21 of 27 the tone also shifts across the site.
Public brands we made stronger
From the election campaign for City of Tilburg and the social-domain story of Municipality of Hilvarenbeek to 10+ years of brand for the GGD and the repositioning of Library Midden-Brabant.
City of Tilburg
Election campaign 'Tilburg kies ME NU' →
Municipality of Hilvarenbeek
The vision on the social domain in one warm story →
GGD (Travel) vaccinations
10+ years of one brand for 25 collaborating GGDs →
Library Midden-Brabant
Library New Style: from poster series to two labels →
Frequently asked questions about communication for government
Why a communication agency that knows government?
The public sector has its own rules: you have to reach all residents, meet strict accessibility requirements (WCAG mandatory) and often work through a tender with a fixed budget. An agency that already knows that context doesn't have to learn it first. Schwung has worked for municipalities, a GGD (public health service) and public institutions for years.
Do you work through tenders?
Yes. We're familiar with the rules of public procurement and think along within the frameworks of budget, lawfulness and planning. We deliver a clear quote and an approach you can justify internally and to your council.
Do your websites meet government accessibility requirements?
Yes. Web accessibility to the WCAG and EN 301 549 standard is legally required for government sites. With us that's standard, from the foundation, not a check afterwards. It also makes your site faster and more findable.
Can you run an entire municipal campaign?
Yes. We develop concept, brand and campaign and execute it, online and offline. For City of Tilburg we made the election campaign 'Tilburg kies ME NU', for Municipality of Hilvarenbeek a warm campaign around the social domain.
Which region does Schwung work for?
From Tilburg we work for municipalities and public organisations across Noord-Brabant and beyond, including 's-Hertogenbosch, Breda and Eindhoven.
Ask Nick.
A communication or brand question at a municipality or government organisation? Give us a call and we'll look at what fits, with knowledge of your context.