American Tobacco held a “Parklet Day” in April which ended up winning the campus, along with co-creator GoSmart, an award from ACT in July.
What could you do with a parking space if you didn’t need to park a car in it? The options are endless, and this spring American Tobacco challenged their tenants to come up with a few. ATC tenant Bronto Nation ended up taking home the top prize, and in late July ATC ended up taking home an award of their own.
GoSmart, formerly known as GoTriangle, and American Tobacco teamed up for a Parklet event on the downtown Durham campus in April. Their efforts recently won the ACT Conference Marketing & Outreach Public Sector Award (under $5,000) for their inexpensive yet effective campaign.
“Park(ing) Day began in 2005 by a design studio in San Francisco, CA, which has evolved into a global movement. The GoSmart Parklet campaign is based on this concept, and really took off in 2015 in the Triangle Region,” explained GoSmart’s Stephanie Loyka . “The goal of our Parklets was sustainable commute awareness to regional employers and employees using a parking space sized area and creating an open space instead that could be used for something enjoyable, or at least an alternative to paved parking, should employees come to work via some other method of transportation other than by SOV.”
American Tobacco and GoSmart created “Parklet Day at the ATC” which took place on April 21, 2015. ATC took the unique approach with a friendly, inter-organizational competition to engage the community and the ATC tenants. Awards, certificates and prizes were awarded for a variety of categories.
Several companies located in American Tobacco participated, creating Parklets.
“People were amused and clearly indicated a desire to participate again,” said Loyka. “We drew our audience in with our display of a dog park and two loveable GoSmart staff pups, engaging at least 50 onlookers, all voting for their favorite Parklet and receiving raffle tickets for great prizes including tickets to the Durham Bulls!”
Attendees voted either via a hand-written card or Twitter.
“Spectators became participants, actively playing games, relaxing, enjoying the dogs and beach dreaming!” said Loyka. “Everyone had tons of fun over a 3-hour timeframe, 11 a.m.–2:00 p.m. capturing the employee lunch audience and visitors to the multi-use location including restaurants and recreational facilities like the Bulls Ballpark, DPAC performing arts center, and YMCA.”
The result? A fun midday for American Tobacco tenants and visitors, awareness for commuting alternatives, and some hardware for ATC and GoSmart.
The ACT award “recognizes public sector organizations that developed and implemented a product, program, promotion, service, or marketing campaign that was designed to meet an identified commuter need or concern.”
The award announcement came at the recent ACT International Conference in Baltimore.
Thanks to GoSmart for these capcom photos.
American Tobacco held a “Parklet Day” in April which ended up winning the campus, along with co-creator GoSmart, an award from ACT in July.
American Tobacco held a “Parklet Day” in April which ended up winning the campus, along with co-creator GoSmart, an award from ACT in July.
American Tobacco held a “Parklet Day” in April which ended up winning the campus, along with co-creator GoSmart, an award from ACT in July.
