Outdoor ASIA - July 2018

August 2018^103

TRANSIT MEDIA

local brands like colleges and restaurants are also
finding this space useful to create brand awareness.
Currently, brands are looking to utilize this space for
one to three month long campaigns. Jaipur Metro also
offers media on civil structures with 40x10 and 22x12
of display units on them which are becoming preferred
advertising formats.

In fact, lucrative branding
options being offered by
various Metros across the
country have triggered
the demand for more
branding options in non-
metro properties. “Having
witnessed a new wave of
advertising, interested
brands are asking for train
wrapping and station branding,” says Shajahan,
Director, Sales & Partnership, Bullseye Media.l

H

yderabad is the latest city to have its own rapid

transit network which was inaugurated in November

2017. It is said to be the world’s largest public-private
      partnership project (PPP) in this sector, built and
      operated by Larsen and Toubro Limited. Initially, the
      30-km stretch between Miyapur to Ameerpet, and
      from Ameerpet to Nagole became operational wherein
      10 trains catered to 80,000 travelers every day as of
      June 2018. The Metro connects major bus stations
      at Miyapur, Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station, Koti,
      Dilsukhnagar, Charminar and Jubilee Bus Station. It is
      integrated with existing rail terminals at Secunderabad,
      Begumpet and Nampally. It is also linked to existing
      local MMTS train services at Bharatnagar, Begumpet,
      Khairatabad, Malakpet and Falaknuma.

Currently, Hyderabad Metro offers only civil structures

for advertising on three corridors handled by four media

owning firms. Prakash Arts, one of the biggest players of

South, along with Uni Ads and Atin OOH handles corridor

no. 2 and 3, wherein Leadspace has been operating

corridor 1 for the last 10 years on maintenance and

beautification basis. These corridors have around

24,000 units in all. The civil structures, which were

earlier of 12 sq ft size have been upgraded to 15 sq ft

for better visibility and branding purposes. Hyderabad

has mainly large size hoardings and bus shelters but

due to low quality of construction, the Metro pillar

media has been gaining advantage. As the pillars are in

the middle of the road built at the eye level with clutter

free environment, branding on them has made them

popular among advertisers as well people.

Currently, 10% of total OOH spends in Hyderabad go

to this media where brands like IKEA, Idea, Nissan

and other major corporates are housing their identity.

However, the retail sector has been a major contributor

with 60% of occupancy on the freshly introduced

formats. The strategy of these brands has been to use

this media format for a minimum of three weeks to a

maximum of 30-180 days.

However, the media owning firms are finding hard to

derive good returns from this media basically due to two

reasons. Firstly, the reach of the Metro is still limited.

Secondly, L&T is proving to be an expensive authority,

which is keeping the maximum revenue share for itself.

Hyderabad Metro