Railways had been the true connector of India’s diversity and plurality. Every citizen would have experienced Indian Railways in their own unique way and these Railway Stations are ready to facilitate a new & memorable way to integrate your brand message.
A few months back, people at the railway station in Kannur, an important district of God’s Own Country called Kerala were in for a special surprise. Those not wanting to miss their trains understandably reached the platforms a tad early. Alongside the regular and important railway announcements about train arrivals and departures, were unmissable audio-ads.
One memorable audio-ad that particularly garnered the attention was Muthoot FinCorp’s #MinnalGoldLoan spot. This campaign coincided with the release of Malayalam superhero movie Minnal Murali and consecutively “Mera Gold Loan, Mera Interest” with Virat Kohli. It was a timely campaign, delivered through a proven and reliable medium, that appeals to our aural senses.
Byron Sharp, the celebrated author of How Brands Grow?, advises marketers to create and use distinctive brand assets to help grow their brands. Brand assets are sensory cues that get noticed by and stay top of mind with consumers – think, for instance, about Nokia’s ringtone, Liril’s waterfall song, McDonald’s Golden Arches, Coke’s bottle shape, Nike’s swoosh or Ikea’s use of yellow and blue colors. Developing quickly recognizable and easily recalled brand assets is an impactful way to break through the clutter and tap into consumers decision-making processes.
In Cricket, they say form is temporary and class is permanent. Similarly in the world of brand building, Differentiation is often temporary, Distinctiveness is long-lasting. By developing a distinctive identity, by using sensory identifiers (e.g., visual, auditory, or touch), that trigger the brand in the consumer’s mind, these distinctive identity elements, called brand assets, make it easy for a brand to be recognized or recalled.
Jenni Romaniuk says in her book “Building Distinctive Brand Assets” that audio-assets are the most overlooked class of all, and that sonic cues still heavily underutilised, despite they being the most effective distinctive assets for gaining branded attention.
In line with the above, railway audio-ads are considered one of the high impact creative units that are reasonably priced to aid substantial brand recall. The strategically placed railway audio-ads help brands garner prospective listeners’ attention and establish their identity in high traffic zones.
A key player in the railway audio-ad space is Ninja Media Creations. The company had been building its business since 2018 and started its operations in Tamil Nadu zone. Soon, they acquired rights to advertise in railway stations in other states, and now have a presence in seven states, covering 50 stations.
Speaking about the advantages of railway audio-ads, Ranjith Chakkath, Founder & Managing Director, Ninja Media Creations, says, “This medium is unique and innovative, as the audio-ads are triggered automatically before and after every train announcement. As the first-mover to leverage this opportunity, the benefits of high rotation and frequency of audio-ads, the inherent hyper-local targeting possibilities, the real-time monitoring capabilities, the high attention that ‘train departure/arrival’ announcements generate among those captive audiences provide truly significant value multiple. Unlike other medium, railway audio-ads are a must-listen medium and provide an extra advantage as non-skippable ad option.”
He further elaborated that CPMs vary region to region, and is priced around INR 5, which is the lowest in any advertising format.
Testimonials from esteemed advertisers are a proof of the positive impact the railway audio-ads had been creating.
Mukundan Satyanarayanan, CEO, VCare, a well-known hair care clinic in South India, says, “We approached Ninja Media Creations when we were planning to open a clinic in Erode, Tamil Nadu. Audio-ads were placed and it reached over 100K consumers every day. Within a few days, we had 25 to 30 customers visiting the clinic on a daily basis. It’s one of the best ad-option for the value in the market.”
Nitin Jain, President, Sugna Metals, had also testified for the medium. “The team at Ninja Media Creations carefully processed our brand requirements. Subsequently, we invested in their railway audio-ads and witnessed sales growth on a massive scale,” Jain adds.
Grand success of (a) Salute RamRajku Salute – campaign in Salem/Coimbatore belt, (b) Kaiyela Irruku Thangam, Kanavu Kanada Singam campaign by Manappuram and (c) Vivaha… The Chennai Silks campaign are few other testimonials for high recall value that railway audio-ads bring to the table.
Challenger brands, retail brands and successful entreprenuers from the likes of Manapuram, Ramraj, Muthoot FinCorp and many leading advertisers constantly engage with large captive audiences through this platform by launching new refreshing audio-ads/ jingles to amplify the reach of their on-going campaigns.
While talking about factors that maximize the reach of a given campaign in Railway audio-ads, Ranjith added that tune-based jingles generate higher impact and better recall as they naturally attract the attention of the audience. “We always encourage our clients to use tune-based jingles to reap better reach and higher recall value among the audience,” he said..
Technological Advantage to Railways:
Ninja Media had developed the technology and software for automated announcements in railway stations to reduce human error, increase operational efficiency and unlock hidden revenue potential.
“It’s a humongous task to work on the operational side of Indian Railways. We had solved few complex problems by constantly engaging them and our Network Operating Center are open 24x7x365 to provide operational support to Indian Railways”, added Ranjith.
As part of its expansion plan, Ninja Media has recently acquired Mumbai LTT Contract for Audio-Video advertising.
In an age of exploding media options and consumers’ default nature of ad-avoidance, this unavoidable medium had managed to get acceptance as an unintrusive option, offering national, regional and local brands the opportunity to make themselves heard.
