A report published by the Survey Sampling Institute research firm, on behalf of outdoor advertising company Eye, called Mall ads more effective, has found that ads placed in shopping centres were considerably more effective than those placed in car parks.

They found the shopping centre ads to be three times more memorable, four times more relevant and influential and eight times more likely to encourage trust and value in brands than those in car parks.

Whilst we acknowledge that advertising media in shopping centres is certainly effective, car park advertising does face a number of challenges. With the car park mainly perceived as a ‘utilitarian’ space in contrast to the more ‘browsing’ orientated environment of the mall, advertising messages and media will have to work harder and be more relevant to the consumers in the car park environment.

However, it’s not just the behavioural patterns of the consumers in the car parks that is the only consideration; in many cases not enough effort is being spent on designing attractive advertising for car parks, that are well lit and enhance the general ambience of the car park. Unless more effort is placed on genuinely relevant messaging in bright, well-placed and well-maintained locations, we are of the opinion that retailers are not going to achieve an adequate return for their advertising dollars.

Would you take notice of a bad quality or badly maintained sign attached to a boom gate? Probably not, and for the right reasons too! Shopping centres have been investing significantly into innovative and engaging advertising media, especially in the past few years. It would be great to see some of these innovations being extended into car parks.

Do any of our readers have any good examples that they want to share with us? Post a link to the ‘comment’ link below, or email any images to pci (at) parkingconsultants.com

Courtesy of TreeHugger comes a report about vehicle fuel efficiency. This article, entitled ‘No wonder fuel economy is stagnant, cars ballooned up since 1980', talks about how gains in the size, weight and horsepower in passenger cars have more than overcompensated for recent improvements in fuel efficiency.

We found this excerpt to be most telling, sourced from a report by Christopher R.Knittel of the Institute of Transportation Studies:

From 1980 to 2004 the average fuel economy of the US new passenger automobile fleet increased by less than 6.5 percent. During this time, the average horsepower of new passenger cars increased by 80 percent, while the average curb weight increased by 12 percent. Changes in light duty trucks have been even more pronounced. Average horsepower increased by 99 percent and average weight increased by 26 percent from 1984 to 2004. The change within passenger cars and light trucks hides much of the story. In 1980 light trucks sales were roughly 20 percent of total passenger vehicles sales; in 2004, they were over 51 percent.

Fuel for thought…?

Read the full article, ‘No wonder fuel economy is stagnant, cars ballooned up since 1980' or Christopher R. Knittel’s report, 'Automobiles on Steroids: Product Attribute Trade-Offs and Technological Progress in the Automobile Sector'. 

Brisbane’s Courier Mail explores the increasing incidence of pedestrians being struck by drivers in busy car parks, desperate to beat other motorists to available parking bays.

Compensation lawyers are getting in on the act too, and AAMI reports that as many as 70% of drivers have had bad experiences in shopping centre car parks, from damage to their vehicles to collisions.

All in all, this article really highlights the need for thoughtful planning with regards to car park design, signage, wayfinding and directional guidance. Technology involving automatic guidance systems, telling people where to go and how many available spaces there are in each car park area, will also help to address this issue as demand for parking increases in line with the number of vehicles on the roads. 

Car parks as a canvas for art? It’s certainly an interesting juxtaposition that’s not lost on us. Below we have a couple of images from the art installation of matchbox toy cars on the wall of a car park in Adelaide. You can read more about the wall in detail at this article, entitled ‘Discovered! The eighth wonder of the world?'

Thanks to Parking Today’s blog for this gem, which we are reproducing as published, entitled ‘Whoops… He Took $5 Million A Year’.

Outside Bristol Zoo, in England, there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 coaches, or buses. It was manned by a very pleasant attendant with a ticket machine charging cars £1 (about $1.40) and coaches £5 (about $7). This parking attendant worked there solid for all of 25 years.

Then, one day, he just didn't turn up for work.

"Oh well", said Bristol Zoo Management - "we'd better phone up the City Council and get them to send a new parking attendant..."

"Err ... no", said the Council, "that parking lot is your responsibility."

"Err ... no", said Bristol Zoo Management, "the attendant was employed by the City Council, wasn'the?"

"Err ... NO!" insisted the Council.

Sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain, is a bloke who had been taking the parking lot fees, estimated at £400 (about $560) per day at Bristol Zoo for the last 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over £3.6million ($5million)! / [FYI - that works out to $200,000/year -- all bottom line income, with no taxes or costs-of-goods-sold (except for his chair, umbrella and ticket machine).

And no one even knows his name.

For anyone who currently takes the parking risk on a regular basis – watch out! A new drive-by spy camera, which electronically scans the position of parked cars is being trialed in Australia. 

Mounted to a vehicle driven by a parking ranger, it scans parked cars at two separate intervals, noting the colour, shape, size and exact location of each car. At the next interval, autoChalk (as the system is known) takes a second image and automatically compares it with the first. If the characteristics match, autoChalk alerts the ranger. The ranger then checks the car's characteristics, including licence plate, colour and model, as well as verifying the position of the vehicle, before issuing a ticket. 

It can automatically detect five times the number of vehicles in the same area as one parking ranger patrolling on foot.

Terrifying. Read more on the Sydney Morning Herald, in an article entitled “Virtual chalk to keep tabs on parked cars".