Your brand express stops here

Rapid Metro Rail in Gurgaon has done it; so have urban metros and monorails in Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Rome and Madrid.

After selling branding rights for airspace in stations, trains, on tickets and handlebars and inside tunnels, rail-based transport systems are further maximising their revenue by selling naming rights of stations to corporates for branding.

So, while the 5-odd km Rapid Metro Rail in Gurgaon in India has Micromax Moulsari Avenue, Vodafone Belvedere Towers and IndusInd Bank Cyber City, Rome has Termini Vodafone, Madrid has Vodafone Sol, New York has Atlantic Avenue Pacific Street-Barclays Centre Station and Las Vegas monorail has stations with names of hotels and casinos such as Flamingo Ceasars Palace, Harrah's and the MGM Grand Station.

The aim is to ensure that the transportation project gets additional revenue from sources other than tickets, a move that will also enable lower ticket fares. After all, most public transportation service providers across the world run with budgetary support, and are under pressure not to increase passenger fares.

“As we speak, we are working towards making more corporates see value in station and train branding in targeting not just a certain section of people, but also people outside (in streets and glass-building offices) who see trains,” said Sanjiv Rai, CEO, Rapid Metro Rail, the country's first privately funded metro station.

Metro Railway Kolkata is open to examining possibilities for branding its stations if there are viable proposals, said an official at Kolkata.

Rapid Metro has sold rights of train wraps to 3C and American Express. Inside, each train has electronic monitors, which will show a mix of functional information along with ads, and there are panels for ads.

“3C and American Express get the rights for 3-5 years. If they want to change the message in the market, they are free to change it. It only takes a few days of work to prepare the wrap. Train number 3 and 4 are being negotiated,” said Rai, declining to share financials.

Indian Railways, one of the world's largest railways, also does vinyl wrapping on trains. For a three-year period — 2009-10 to 2011-12 — it sold rights for 74 premium trains in the Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Mail and Express categories for Rs 25 crore.

Indian Railways make about Rs 200 crore a year by selling branding rights of various stations, a figure that can be further increased, according to audit agency CAG.

Delhi Metro has also sold train branding rights for about 90 trains for close to Rs 30 crore, for about three years. It also offers train wraps. The largest metro system in the country also sells branding rights on civil structures, outside stations and in tunnels.

A no-fare-hike regime for nearly a decade has prompted the Metro Railway, Kolkata, an Indian Railways arm, to create more space for ads. In 2012-13, Kolkata Metro earned an estimated Rs 16 crore by renting out ad space at stations and trains.

Meanwhile, plans have been chalked out for creating ad space in the pillars on the elevated stretch of the upcoming East-Metro corridor, which will connect IT City Salt Lake with the central business districts of Kolkata and Howrah.

That said, selling naming rights of stations is a nascent concept, and is yet to gain wider acceptance in the Government-backed set up. Indian Railways, with over 7,000 stations, which are primarily named after cities and not streets, is clear about not doing it. Railway Board Chairman Arunendra Kumar told BrandLine that the Indian Railways is not considering such a move.

Also, Delhi Metro appears to have not made up its mind yet on whether it wants to go down the station name-selling path. At present, DMRC generates approximately Rs 80 crore from the advertisement business and this is expected to go up further. It is expected to augment much needed revenues to DMRC, particularly keeping in view that the fare of DMRC have not been revised in the past, despite electricity tariffs being hiked. A Delhi Metro spokesperson said he was waiting for response from the department concerned. It may mean more money but it would mean taking decisions such as affixing the name of a brand to the central station, Rajiv Chowk, named after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Why no DLF?

Even for a location commonly known as DLF Phase 2, Rapid Metro has dropped DLF and terms the station as “Phase 2 because it wants to sell the branding rights in future. In effect, the station which connects DLF Phase II is called Phase II, as of now. In fact, even Rapid Metro’s website says that Phase 2 station is located in DLF Phase-2. Contrast this with Delhi Metro, which has an Iffco Chowk station in its network, though that is more to do with the fertiliser cooperative’s long-standing presence in that area. When asked why there are no DLF in station names which go around locations commonly known as DLF streets, Rai said that DLF does not need to advertise anymore in Gurgaon. “We did not put our name there also. We could have found a way to put IL&FS somewhere. But that was never the objective. Our aim was to define the local area in name of station. Station is Phase-II, which has Phase-2 colony. A lot of buildings around the Rapid Metro say DLF. They don’t need to advertise.”

COMMENT NOW