Transit media advertising has the power to build a strong top-of-the-mind recall, but being a heavily used medium of advertising, consumers, on average, see a lot of transit advertisements daily. While it is still not as saturated as online marketing is, brands still need to strategically plan their transit media campaign.

First, let’s clear the basics.

What is transit media advertising?

Transit media advertising is a type of OOH (Out-of-home) advertising. It involves advertising your brand through transit media such as auto-rickshaws, bus panels, train advertising, metro advertising, aeroplane advertising or any other such form of transit advertising.

Auto rickshaw advertising may have really captured the fancy of the masses with innovative campaigns painting the town. Many of India’s prominent start-up brands have been largely built using this medium.

Transit media allows you to geographically target your audience, and provides greater flexibility in terms of location, and budget.

What does transit media advertising include?

• Train advertising
• Auto rickshaw advertising
• Bus branding
• Ola, Uber branding
• Metro branding
• Aeroplane advertising
• Taxi advertising
• Cab branding
• Mobile Van Display
• Bus shelters branding
• Train station branding
• Airport branding
• Gas station branding and more

Advantages of Transit Media Advertising: 

• They are cost-effective

In fact, the cost is one of the most attractive reasons for marketers to use this medium. 

• It has great engagement

Imagine being stuck in traffic, you usually will stare at the back of the vehicle in front of you, or on your phone. In most cases, you will oscillate between the two. 

• Mobile coverage 24×7

The number of trips that the driver makes, the greater visibility your brand gets. But, on average, an auto-rickshaw makes about 40 trips per day. Imagine the places that are being explored by your brand along with other vehicles like buses and metros.

5 Examples of Indian Brands Doing Transit Advertising

Transit advertising is a popular medium of advertising for Indian entrepreneurs and businesses, small or large. From Big Bazaar, J.K Cement, and Saffola to Magnum, HDFC Bank and many other large and small businesses have used transit advertising to promote their products or services.

Let’s have a look at the 5 Indian brands who did or are doing transit media advertising

1. Porter

Porter started off as a platform to address inefficiencies in the logistics sector and change the way things are transported in the city and around. So they partnered with individual distributors. 

The place where they promoted their brand was where they expected most of their delivery partners to be. On the road. They have been advertising through transit media, particularly through auto rickshaws. The brand is adopting a 360 approach while doing transit media advertising. Porter is not just investing in auto rickshaw branding but also in van branding, and truck branding.

Being a logistics brand, marketing through trucks is a highly investable advertising media for the brand.

In a similar fashion, SK Kisan Kirana started from humble beginnings. They were of the idea that they should do what is in their budget and create brand awareness. 

So, they went ahead with advertising on auto-rickshaws too and eventually grew their business to a level that now the brand was displayed during a cricket match. 

2. Volo Bus by IAF

The Indian Air Force branded an entire bus that had simulator zones and models of various air crafts and give the youth a taste of what life can be like in the forces. 

The main aim of this Volvo bus was to encourage the youth of the country to join the defence forces and to think of it as a serious career option.

3. Big Bazaar

Our next example of transit media advertising is Big Bazaar. Big Bazaar is a household name, and they have been using transit media for their marketing for a long time. The brand aims to target an urban or a metro community via the transport services in the local area using transit media such as auto-rickshaws, tempos, vans, cabs, and buses.

The brand promotes the available offers with their tagline “Isse Sasta Aur Accha Kahi Nahi ” meaning, you will not get something better or cheaper elsewhere. 

Apart from promoting their deals on auto-rickshaws, they also have their own vehicles that they used to deliver goods to their customers. These tempos too carry ads of deals and sales that are going on or are upcoming, giving the desired visibility to the brand.

4. Grofers

Grofers is a grocery app that delivers goods after you order them online. As of late, Grofers executed the brand’s second campaign in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore. The target of the campaign was to tap the customers’ minds with logical information at spots of their presence, making top-of-mind reviews of the brand and encouraging them to use the application.

The brand was most focused on telling people they can grocery shop from their phones and don’t have to physically go to the store, and hence advertised in high footfall areas, like inside the metro. This was especially helpful to the company as many people would go home, and on the way, could also grocery shop and save time. 

5. Paytm

India’s digital payments company, Paytm recently announced the launch of Metro Route Search – a feature that can be used by metro rail travellers to plan their journey.

It urges the users to use the PayTm application and since the app tells the transit time, people sitting on the train (who cant wait to get home) will definitely have the urge to download the app and open it. 

How to use it?

Open the Paytm app and click on the ‘Metro’ icon. Select your city and click on Route Search. Select your origin and destination stations and click on the search button to view the routes. The feature would suggest the route and also show you the journey time between the selected stations.

To promote this feature Paytm is doing transit media advertising such as metro branding

Transit media branding is one of the fastest growing in the field of marketing. It has perks like no other form and the results show it. Advertising on buses, auto rickshaws, tempos, Ola, Uber, trains and metros helps the brand reach their target audience offline. 

There is location flexibility and the budget isn’t much either. What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments below.

Looking to do transit advertising for your brand? Contact us at +91 990 247 8800