First, Pepsico Holdings India Pvt. Ltd sponsored a special train, as part of its Blue Billion campaign, to ferry cricket lovers to the three Champions Trophy match venues last October. Now, it has its snack brand, Kurkure, as the name of three summer specials of South Western Railway.
“Has Kurkure arrived?” is a constant refrain at the Bangalore railway station. And what passengers are referring to is not the popular brand of high-on-chilli crispies but Kurkure Express, which runs from Bangalore to Nagercoil. The other two Kurkure Express trains link Bangalore to Chennai and Hubli.
To get thousands of passengers talking about its brand, Pepsico has paid Rs10 lakh for the sponsorship of the three trains. A tidy sum for South Western Railway, which recently hit upon the idea of allowing companies to sponsor special trains that did not have names.
And this is not a one-off case. Airtel, too, has its colours painted on rail coaches, as have organizations such as Western Union Holdings Inc., UTI Bank, Sony Television and Hindustan Unilever (HUL). But not everyone is repainting trains in their brand colours. L’Oréal group’s Garnier, for instance, plans to advertise its hair care products on train tickets and reservation charts. All these companies attest to the fact that the railways is a good vehicle for ads to reach a mass audience. And now, more advertisers are jumping on the bandwagon as the railways accelerates efforts to net ad revenue.
Take the Kurkure Express, for instance. It was made possible because of a special scheme conceptualized by the railways. “We offer a package to the companies. They get to name the train as well as feature their advertisement on its exterior. In return, they have to pay for the advertisement and also contribute to the upkeep of the train,” says Mahesh Mangal, an officer with South Western Railway who is part of the branding project.
Other railway zones can also tap into this branding scheme. The ministry has issued a circular which would allow general managers in each of the 16 zones to call for similar tenders, inviting companies to sponsor particular trains. “This is a totally unexplored revenue stream for us. We will try this for a while and see how much we can earn,” says a Railway Board official, who handles space marketing.
Shifting gears
To optimize advertisement revenue, the railways is selling ad spots on all possible properties—from neon signs in parking lots to train windows and food trays. This, apart from hardselling the traditional hoardings and banners at stations and kiosks. With one of the largest networks in the world, it hopes to leverage it to earn around Rs500 crore in the next two years.