Making a Profit
Making a Profit
From their opening day, the Ivy Street Corporation wasted no time drumming up business for the garage. Although automobiles were still gaining popularity with average citizens, business and social events attracted members of the upper- and middle-classes who could afford their own vehicles. The owners of the garage used a wide variety of appeals to potential customers.
The first advertisements for the garage emphasized the convenience of parking downtown, the ease of driving up the ramps to park or having the valets park for you, and the services offered in the garage for lubrication, washing, and oiling.
During the grand opening weekend, the garage hosted an automobile show with free parking for attendees. Ads for the Ivy Street Garage taken out in The Atlanta Constitution claimed it was the "Largest Modern Garage in the World." It also included impressive information about the garage, emphasizing the six stories with 183,000 square feet of parking for 1,100 cars. Automobile manufacturers such as Marmon brought their latest models to the show, advertising that customers could see the cars at the garage. Local car dealers, such as Rippey Motor Company, also brought their inventory for customers to inspect.
How to Market a Parking Garage
In the 1920s, the primary means of reaching potential customers was through print ads in the newspapers. The Ivy Street Garage advertised in The Atlanta Constitution regularly, using a variety of rhetorical strategies and changing content to appeal to new customers.
Local Businesses and Newspapers Help Out
Retailers located downtown were always trying to persuade customers to brave the city streets to shop in their large department stores. The Ivy Street Garage offered a perfect solution to the problem of parking near the stores. Retailers would validate parking for their customers and included that convenience in their advertisements.
