In recent discussions with Pulse Group, the agency we employed in
2011, to raise awareness of Park Mark in the eyes of the motoring public, we
dubbed 2012 as "The Year of the Safer Parking Scheme" for this year
truly should be the year in which the motoring public begin to learn more about
what some in the industry have described as parking's best kept secret.
The ideas coming through to place Park Mark under the noses of
motorists in their thousands are really exciting, and far from obvious. You
see: it's not about TV campaigns, radio advertising, expensive roadside posters
and the like. It's about thinking smartly using limited resources in the most
cost-effective way. Even if we wanted to - and we don't - these kinds of
campaigns costs hundreds of thousands, if not millions of pounds, which we
simply don't have.
How else can you
get your message across? Well consider who your target is. And how do you reach
them? At Park Mark, we are going after new drivers, parents with young children
and older motorists this year. We are working in partnership with the Driving
Instructors Association, to promote the safer parking message as part of driver
tuition. We are following up important leads with people that provide goods and
services to parents and young children and also those that provide services to
older motorists, to work out how, through collaboration, we can promote the
safer parking message. Also, cleverly, we have been discussing with Pulse the
concept of working with major businesses: people who employ thousands of
people, through call centres and in the service industry to promote the message
internally through their own health and safety programs. The fleet car market
and rental market offers significant opportunities here too.
It's all about
getting our brand and our message in front of as many people as possible in a
way which they readily absorb what you are trying to say. This is why we use
Twitter and Facebook both with their dedicated Park Mark feeds and pages. Why
not get your customers to follow us on Twitter or to ‘Like Us’ on Facebook? Why
not link your Twitter and Facebook pages to ours? Let’s really make the most of
social networking to promote the safer parking message to everyone. That way
they'll find out even more about you and us.
It's been a long
time coming and, trust me, a lot of work is being done behind the scenes both
at the BPA and at Pulse to build strong alliances which will last. It is
important to us that we have a sustainable safer parking message being promoted
rather than a single big bang followed by little or nothing else. We want
people to be constantly thinking about parking safely and choosing safer
parking by looking for Park Mark and having it in the back of their mind most
of the time... recalling it as they need too - each time they take the car out!
There will be
many more details emerging in the coming weeks and months about how, together
with Pulse, the motoring public will begin to learn so much more about Park
Mark in 2012 - the year of the Safer Parking Scheme!