Any change is hard. However, downtown Des Moines is growing and the needs for shoppers, visitors, residents and business owners varied, so the city needed to make changes. Businesses in the area seldom found parking near their shop, so the city commissioned a study showing it took, on average, 3 minutes to find a parking spot with an average of one parking spot in eight blocks. There should be on average one in every block.

The city knew change was needed and worked with the city council, business groups, businesses and neighborhood associations to change on-street parking to Monday through Saturday from 9 am to 9pm. In turn, the city was trying to incentivize off-street parking so they decreased parking in city managed garages. The problem is how do they communicate these changes in a short amount of time?

A mapping session was completed with key stakeholders that allowed us to understand the needs of the city, residents and businesses. A communication engagement spectrum was created that outlined how the overall message was tailored to different target audiences. Our message campaign PARKING MADE EASY tried to highlight easy parking options, where free parking was located and easy Smart Meters that take credit cards or Smart Cards.

Due to time constraints Capture Management Solutions worked on the creative and outreach strategy at the same time. The outreach component was one of the most effective marketing strategies we could do. It allowed us to speak directly to business owners, get feedback and create a dynamic ability for the city and Capture Management Solutions to adjust strategy on-the-fly.

Pop-up events, presentations at neighborhood associations, chambers and booths at the Farmers' Market provided great outreach to citizens and allowed us to get messaging out to the public. When outreach was completed in a certain area, a paid media blitz was launched to supplement and continue the message including, sandwich boards, radio ads, billboards, banners, skywalk ads, posters and social media campaign.

"We are so glad the city is doing this outreach; I feel like they are listening to us." This statement was common during our outreach efforts. This allowed individuals  to give feedback that we brought back to the city. Many suggestions and ideas were implemented. The outreach efforts helped create a better understanding of the change and why it was needed, but more importantly the outreach created message champions who would defend negative comments on social media. This was the most impactful result from the campaign as it was citizens and business owners who would help provide perspective and positive comments help overcome the negative ones.

The paid advertising campaign had a focus on getting out the message of paid parking Monday through Friday 9 am to 9 pm and to let individuals know of the enforcement date. We worked hard to keep the message consistent and to stay on message with all of our media channels. Our research showed when leading with a positive such as "Free Parking Spaces On Bridges" and then our message, we found a better engagement with more positive sentiment than leaving out the positive message.