G. Don’t Be That Guy/Lady!:
OVERVIEW: Owned By The People We Serve is the motto at Chelan County Public Utility District (District). The District was created in 1936 by a vote of county residents and is governed by a five-member, non-partisan, elected Board of Commissioners. The District owns and operates two hydroelectric dam projects on the Columbia River and a third dam on the Chelan River. Together, these three dams generate enough electricity to power almost 900,000 homes for a year. As a recognized Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) license-holder for the operation of our hydro projects, the PUD is required to provide recreational opportunities and access along the Columbia River and Lake Chelan. In all, the PUD owns 15 parks. This award entry focuses on a fifteen mile bicycle/pedestrian/ roller-blade loop trail (Apple Capital Loop Trail) near the largest city in Chelan and Douglas Counties – Wenatchee.
STAKEHOLDERS/AUDIENCE: Initially, the audience included the park/recreation partners, City of Wenatchee Parks; City of East Wenatchee Parks; Chelan and Douglas County Parks; Washington State Dept. of Parks; and Wenatchee Outdoors organization. These recreation partners were concerned about certain park behaviors—that is, etiquette. The parks are for the enjoyment of many users, yet often there can be conflict.
The next audience would be the greater Apple Capital Loop users—cyclists, roller bladers, pedestrians, dog owners, and many others—including families with small children who use various park playgrounds.
RESEARCH: In order to better understand the concerns of our stakeholders, we did an initial survey with them to better understand their primary concerns (WORK SAMPLE #1). The District was well-aware of confrontations around cyclist going too fast in congested areas (in particular); off-leash dogs and failure of dog owners to pick up after their dogs; and then those who pass other trail users and fail to let slower users know that they are coming up behind them. The initial pre-campaign survey helped us solidify our impressions.
There was a post-campaign loop trail user survey to determine what, if any impact, the etiquette campaign had on them (WORK SAMPLE) The responses were quite interesting and will be useful as we design the 2017 campaign that includes not only the three primary behaviors identified, but a couple of others that we would like to make more visible and to educate users.
PLANNING: The initial planning effort occurred with the stakeholder group in May of 2016. The campaign outline was developed based on the earlier survey results. (WORK SAMPLE} The strategy was to target likely park/loop trail users between the ages of 25 – 50. We knew that we couldn’t have a campaign that was focused on “Don’t Do This” and “Don’t Do That,” but rather to have some fun and poke fun at “etiquette violators!” We came up with DON’T BE THAT GUY/LADY with the message carried through a series of three :30 PSA videos.
We settled on a robust social media campaign based on the three primary topics (speed; off-leash dogs; failure to announce passing). We would couple the social media effort with cable television PSAs; movie theatre videos; and stakeholder digital efforts (online newsletters, websites, sharing/liking the District’s social posts). The District also used its own customer-owner newsletter (distributed to every resident in the service territory); governing board (Commission) meetings; radio interviews; ad events. (There is no local television station other than the public access station, which we also used). The culmination for the season was to have THAT GUY and THAT LADY to make a personal appearance at the District’s annual Public Power Week celebration in early October. They would give out T-shirts that read “Don’t Be That Guy/Lady” and dog leashes with –ummm- poop bags attached and bicycle bells and magnets with 10 mph on them. The event was incredibly well-attended (planned during a public market Saturday where there would be a built in audience situated right next to the loop trail).
The videos involved local actors and District employee “extras.” The total cost of the effort:
Three :30 videos: $16,000
Advertising: $ 3,000
Social media: $ 150
Video links (please view all three – they are a riot!); http://www.chelanpud.org/parks-and-recreation/park-and-trail-etiquette or see above
EXECUTION/OUTCOME/EVALUATION:
Goal: Increase the number of leashed dogs; decrease the doggy “presents” left behind; increase the use of “On Your Left” to notify you are passing; and to decrease the bicyclist speed in congested areas
Objective: Change park etiquette behaviors for everyone’s benefit and enjoyment on the Apple Capital Loop Trail.
Tactics: :30 video PSAs and radio PSAs; coupled with an aggressive social media campaign that went viral (WORK SAMPLE METRICS)
Result: In a post-campaign intercept interview (work samples) we learned:
– People were familiar with the campaign
– People really liked the campaign and its approach
– People said that more people are saying “On your left” when they passed by
– Parks employees only anecdotally report that speeds have decreased in congested areas (we will do radar-gun monitoring when cycling season starts up again);
– Statistics from the Sheriff’s Dept. and the District’s own Security group showed that the number of off-leash dogs dropped from a high of 49/week at the start of the campaign in July, to fewer than 5/week at the end of the campaign in late October.
