Success Stories
Fall 2006 Community Partner Champion
Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission
Add a healthy measure of innovation to air quality education and you've got a recipe for a successful campaign. That's how air quality public outreach is done in Dayton, Ohio, where Laura Loges, manager of marketing and public affairs at Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission (MVRPC), cooks up some pretty clever ideas.
"Air quality can be a hard, complicated message to get across," said MVRPC media partner Kim Janke, director of event marketing for Clear Channel Communications in Dayton. "But Laura is a rare marketing person. She finds ways to really connect with the public by being creative and knowing when to innovate to keep people interested."
MVRPC's overall approach to public education has changed in recent days to include a focus on transportation-related issues that affect air quality, such as urban sprawl, land use, and development, which they call the Sustainable Growth Initiative. But reminding residents to take personal responsibility for making smarter, healthier transportation choices is still a mainstay of the MVRPC air quality outreach component.
"We wanted the air quality program to be broader-based but still specific enough to demonstrate that people's actions—on a daily basis...in all sorts of ways—affect the overall picture," said Laura, who draws from an annual CMAQ budget of $197,000 to reach residents in their seven-county region. Laura says she uses It All Adds Up messages and materials as a springboard for sounding off across radio, TV, print, and the Internet, and during special events, which she often punctuates with her unique and memorable twist Ohioans have come to know and appreciate.
Give 'em five minutes of fame
The well-received "Caught ya doin' good!" summertime TV ads are evidence of Laura's novel approach to outreach and education. In 2003, she partnered with local NBC affiliate, WDTN to create the ad series, which is a big hit in the community still today.
The fun gets underway every May, when WDTN airs a string of clean air TV ads encouraging residents to practice the It All Adds Up simple steps. MVRPC also features the steps on its Web site. During the next several weeks, the team heads out into the community with a camera crew to videotape residents who are "caught" practicing the simple steps. "It's a great way for us to get out into the community, thank people one-on-one, and continue to reinforce the messages," Laura said. "And it's a lot of fun."
When the team spots someone riding their bike, taking the bus, or carpooling to work or school; refueling their gas tank or mowing their lawn after 6 p.m; or using battery-powered lawn equipment, they hop out of the van and reward the do-gooder with a prize related to the action they're practicing. Give-away items include free gas cards, bicycle gear, and battery-operated or electric lawn care kits, which local businesses donate or sell to MVRPC at a discount. Residents can also enter a contest to win battery-powered yard equipment and free gas on the MVRPC Web site.
"I'm sure people wonder if their actions really do matter, so we wanted to tell them that they do," Laura said.
Ripping it up on the radio
To connect with Dayton's young-adult/college-age crowd during ozone season, MVRPC hired the morning radio DJs from an alternative music station to do a jocular air quality quiz using some of the facts featured in It All Adds Up quizzes. To make it zanier, the DJs tag the month of August "Smogust" and invite listeners to call in and play to win t-shirts, Frisbees, pens, and other low-cost items marked with air quality messages. "The whole prize pack is probably only worth about $10, but people really get into it. It's amazing," Laura said. "After the DJs get a quiz winner, they throw in another 10-to-15 seconds of reiteration by saying something like, 'Just remember, if you're going to Wendy's for lunch today, don't sit idling at the drive-thru window, because idling causes pollution and costs money,' etc."
Commercials that advance the It All Adds Up simple steps or promote MVRPC's rideshare program are also heard by jazz, easy listening, pop, and country music camps. "I don't have the luxury of tailoring radio ads to specific genres, but the ones I do run are heard all over the place," Laura said. "We use a really diverse collection of stations."
Laura buys her air time quarterly, follows the ratings, keeps her eyes open for specials, and always tries to score a better price with the sales and marketing folks. "I'm a big whiner," she said teasingly. "I just work with them pretty closely and they give me really good rates."
Park it here for cleaner air
MVRPC's Park it here! is another winning program that's catching on with the local workforce—and it's getting cars off the road. During the summer months, commuters who normally pay to park in a busy downtown parking garage have a chance to park for free in designated spots, if they participate in the rideshare program. That saves them $25 to $65 per month in parking fees alone. "It's a really nice option for people who usually pay for parking," said Laura, who leases the parking spaces, distributes hangtags to participants, and throws in a downtown guidebook with discount coupons to use at local merchants.
To market Park it here!, Laura runs print and radio ads, puts up posters, taps a mailing list of 150 downtown Dayton businesses, and gets employers to run articles about the program in their company newsletters. The slots always fill up fast with students and workers from all professions and income levels. Last summer, nearly 80 percent of the participants were first-time carpoolers. "We're trying to get drivers to try the program, get them over the hump, and squash any qualms they might have about carpooling. Once they try it, in theory, they'll stick with it."
According to an end-of-the-summer telephone survey, most do. "More than half of the people who tried the program continue to carpool after the parking promotion is over," said Laura. "Between high gas prices and our air quality information blitz, people are pretty attuned to the benefits."
Pick and choose to build your own message
Laura especially likes mixing and matching a variety of It All Adds Up resources to come up with something a little different, such as the new anti-idling TV and radio ads she's working on. "I really like the catchy wording and format of the It All Adds Up print ads and icons, so we're going to use them for our radio and TV ads, too." she said, adding that neighboring clean air organizations have expressed interest in borrowing the new ads when they're ready. "We're in the process of using five of the It All Adds Up newspaper ads to create scripts for 15-second TV and radio ads, which Cincinnati's MPO (OKI) and Columbus's MPO (MORPC) have said they'd also like to use," Laura explained. "So SW/Central Ohio should be blanketed with It All Adds Up materials again next Spring and Summer."
- Watch Part 1
- Watch Part 2
- Watch Part 3
- Listen to Clean Air 1
- Listen to Clean Air 2
- Listen to Clean Air 3
The same method applies when crafting new creations for print.
"We did a gas-cap-testing campaign using the headline from the It All Adds Up ad, 'Your mom always told you to take care of your stuff' and added text about how important it is to keep your car well-tuned and maintained," Laura said. "Then we added the schedule and locations for the gas-cap-testing events." She used the It All Adds Up tagline to create worksite fliers and other ads and also aired a series of TV and radio commercials to promote the campaign. "Most people didn't realize the direct connection between gasoline emissions and air pollution," Laura said. "They also liked the added benefit of saving money and fuel with a properly-fitting gas cap."
Next up is deciding how to get air quality education to the region's growing number of Spanish-speaking residents. "East Dayton has a pretty large Hispanic population, so we're thinking about translating some of our materials into Spanish," she said, noting that she'll also take a closer look at the Spanish-language versions of It All Adds Up materials. "It's good to know I can find Spanish translations of some of the It All Adds Up materials on ItAllAddsUp.gov—it's definitely worth checking out."
To learn more about the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission's air quality activities, contact Laura Loges at lloges@mvrpc.org, visit the Web site at www.miamivalleyair.org, or call Laura at (937)223-6323.
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