Challenge
City CarShare is the largest nonprofit car sharing provider in North America and the only provider as such in the Bay Area, serving more than 43,000 members in hundreds of locations in 10 Bay Area cities including San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Daly City, Alameda, El Cerrito, Albany, Fremont, Emeryville and Pleasanton. City CarShare provides convenient, affordable hourly access to shared, fuel-efficient cars to reduce car dependence, plus the organization promotes green mobility options beyond carsharing, including walking, biking and other forms of public transportation to benefit individuals, businesses, communities and the environment.
City CarShare’s goals are to:
- Reduce traffic by removing 20,000 cars off Bay Area roads by 2020.
- Convert half of the fleet to electric or hybrid by 2015 – the organization met this goal in late 2013, more than one year ahead of schedule.
- Reduce its members’ driving costs by one billion dollars over the costs of car ownership by 2020.
City CarShare hired Landis Communications to assist in driving communications around these key goals, as well as to better position City CarShare as the only nonprofit carsharing choice in San Francisco’s burgeoning “sharing economy.”
Strategy
In addition to basic block-and-tackle outreach around the benefits of carsharing highlighting the benefits of cost savings and positive environmental impact, Landis Communications also guided City CarShare through high-profile and sometimes controversial topics such as the launch of the Dash program in Pleasanton’s Hacienda Business Park, the launch of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Association’s on-street parking program and pre-launch activity for San Francisco’s first eBike share program.
Landis Communications also provided extra support around City CarShare’s member promotions, offering both creative ideas and strategy for logistics, publicity and social media.
Results
Through its PRomised Results© program, LCI worked with City CarShare to identify specific metrics, including media placements, that would show the return-on-investment benefits of a solid public relations programs. These results were tracked monthly in a spreadsheet. Overall, LCI exceeded media placement goals by 855%. Additionally, City CarShare experienced a significant jump in consumer interest in terms of website traffic on high coverage days.