Roles
Brand Strategy
Marketing Strategy
Creative Direction
Stakeholder Engagement
Market Research
Executive Sell-through
Project Management
Client
Collaborators
Studio DAD
KEF Communications
Megan Zabel Holmes Photo
PDX Parent Magazine
TriMet
Summary
Wrote and executed first Parks and Nature marketing plan. Increased park visits system-wide, filled educational classes, boosted understanding of Metro’s role in the region, helped pass a bond and a levy to ensure long-term funding.
I was hired initially to Metro Parks and Nature first marketing plan. This 19-park system features some historically recreational parks like Blue Lake and Oxbow, as well as expansive natural areas with unique ecosystems and minimal human development. Metro properties are places where visitors can experience the land as closely to what it was before European settlement. It’s common to spot elk, river otters, great blue herons, nesting bald eagles, and any number of plants and fungi at a Metro park and natural area. This type of experience is rare, and the public needs to know it exists and how to visit. Residents also need to realize real human beings are working to keep the air and water clean for fish and wildlife, how important it is to conserve the land we already have so we can preserve habitat, and how their tax dollars are being spent wisely so future generations can continue to have access to the Big Nature which makes Portland so special.
So, while co-leading the rebranding effort, I worked on the sidelines to research and write the Parks and Nature marketing plan; I delivered both within three weeks of each other. I then spearheaded rolling out the new brand first across Metro Parks and Nature. This was when I learned the huge difference between how the private and public sectors look at resources. Corporations bank on shareholder value; governments operate by the will of the people, deriving their value comes through public trust.
The private sector acquires, saying: “I’ll take this and that resource over there, and that one, too. I’ll win more business, and use whatever I’ve gained to build more capital and increase the value for shareholders.” Whereas the public sector maintains, saying: “We only have a limited amount of funding from taxpayers, and we’re gonna be watched closely by the public whom we’re obligated to serve, so we have to be VERY mindful of how we spend this money.”
This intrinsic difference shaped the brand’s rollout. We didn’t remove and replace every appearance of the old logo with the new one. Instead we only replaced the logo only once the sign/uniform/vehicle itself needed to replacing. While that meant the public saw two logos out in the world simultaneously, it also meant they didn’t see their tax dollars being spent needlessly to boost the recognition of a local government.
Once we rolled out the brand through material objects, I began creating more targeted marketing and outreach materials for the different teams within Parks and Nature. Volunteers, community grants, cemeteries, nature education, the plant propagation center all got the new Metro brand on their outreach efforts: email, printed flyers, Facebook invitations, Instagram posts. I began to coordinate more closely with my community outreach teammates to pair up with more community organizations, especially those from communities of color. I launched audience mapping to better understand the residents living close to each park, and then used the gleaned information to tailor messaging and create events for those residents. We eliminated the unpopular classes, and reduced outreach efforts to the same predominantly white demographic Metro had reached for years. Within a few months, we needed waitlists for classes and events.
Next, I launched a “Park of the Month” marketing program on Instagram. Each month, I sent a very talented contractor out to a new park or natural area within the Metro system to take beautiful photos and videos. When combined with the new Park Finder application, users and visitors began to see and feel the unique experience of visiting a Metro property. I coordinated with the writers of the quarterly Metro Parks and Nature magazine, Our Big Backyard, to showcase the parks they were featuring to coordinate a marketing and engagement push to our viewers.
One of the biggest ways to engage the public is through education, and one of the best assets Metro has is its employees. The Parks and Nature marketing plan called on staff to become more comfortable in front of the camera. My teammates led staff through a basic training on how to take great photos and videos in the field. Now we trained them on how to talk about the Metro Parks and Nature mission, and to be more confident in sharing their vast knowledge in ways anyone in the public could understand. This led to first-person interviews and testimonials by staff.
Click on the images below to see the Park of the Month Instagram posts.
