Guideline for consistency

Introduction

In order to communicate consistently, both locally and internationally, it’s important to always use the right corporate Sustainable Mobility Partner (SMP) wording, tone of voice and visual style. This document gives an overview of which wording and formulations to use, and which not to use. Note that this is a British English dictionary, to be translated (localised) for use in your specific country / language(s).

Your localised dictionary will help you to align content like news articles, press releases and social media posts with the SMP narrative and Q-Park language, which fits into our decentralised content process philosophy. Of course, support from Q-Park Corporate is always available.

Please make sure to share your local version of this document with:

• relevant colleagues in your organisation, and to especially remind the people who communicate externally to update and adhere to it;

• new employees (make it a part of the onboarding process);

• external suppliers like agencies and/or freelancers if you have any.

Brand identity

Using the Q-Park Brand Identity elements correctly protects, maintains and increases the value of the Q-Park brand and distinguishes it from competitors. Please consult the Q-Park Brand Identity website to find and correctly apply:

• Our name, logo, colours, shapes, visual building blocks, other visual elements in our parking facilities, services and promotions.

• Our language in communications.

• Our international consistency in both tangible and digital materials.

• Word, Excel and PowerPoint templates.

Corporate SMP dictionary

10 most important wordings

• Parking facility (PF) – NOT car park or car accommodation as in some PFs we facilitate more than cars such as bicycles, coaches, city logistics … et cetera.

• Active mobility – NOT cycling and walking / pedestrianisation.

• Bicycle – NOT bike; as a motorcycle is often referred to as bike.

• Motorists – NOT drivers; motorist refers to our parking customers and drivers refers to what drives us and is often used to explain strategic elements.

• EV charging – NOT car charging I Number plate – NOT license plate as that’s the American term;

  • Number plate belongs with the European Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)

  • License plate belongs with the American License Plate Recognition (LPR)

• P+R or Park + Ride – NOT P&R

• Urban area – NOT urbanisation, we use urban area to refer to cities and towns. The term urbanise, urbanisation means to transform a rural area into an urban area.

• Customer – NOT consumer: a parking space cannot be consumed (like food), and with customer we refer to all Business-To-Customers (B2C) relationships.

• Partner – NOT client; partner refers to all Business-To-Business (B2B) relationships, for example suppliers of EV charging services, mobility hub participants, etc.

Tone of voice

This is highly dependent on your markets, so please include all relevant local information. For example:

• Which groups do you address with ‘formal’ (Sie, vous, u, …) and ‘informal’ pronouns (du, tu, je/jij, …).

• Specific inclusive language choices (with regard to local sensitivities for example).

In general, pay attention to the following guidelines in all languages:

• Active in favour of passive: ‘Q-Park has opened a new mobility hub in X’ - NOT ‘A new mobility hub was opened by Q-Park’

• Short sentences in favour of long ones.

• Avoid repetition and needless adjectives.

• Seeing our B2B relations as partners and not clients is all about partnerships – doing things together. It’s also in the way we talk about them in case studies. For example: ‘we developed the mobility hub in close collaboration with the city – NOT ‘for the city or ‘commissioned by the city’.