WEH Metro station branding rights not done for revenue: Sudhir Pai

Real estate portal Magicbricks.com recently acquired the station branding rights of the Western Express Highway (WEH) Metro station in Mumbai. The station is now christened ‘Magicbricks Western Express Highway’. The station branding is visible inside the Metro, on Metro route maps as well station signages and advertisement units inside and outside the Metro station.

As part of this exercise, in the first phase Magicbricks put ticker boards which showcased property rates and trends of nearby localities and the city at large. Digital boards have also been installed, which showcase the latest available properties and projects for the convenience of consumers. In the second phase, the real estate portal plans to make the station more interactive by introducing an experiential zone. Magicbricks will also allow builders to use this branding platform to reach out to their specific consumer base.

Commenting on the station branding, Sudhir Pai, CEO, Magicbricks.com, said, “The Metro station re-branding is a further step in our efforts to make the Magicbricks brand omnipresent and part of the everyday lives of our consumers. This initiative will go beyond branding and station visibility. An innovative experiential zone will be unveiled soon, which will add utility value and convenience to the property buying process.”

The Mumbai Metro line has a total of 12 stations which connect Versova to Ghatkopar. Magicbricks WEH is at a strategic location between Andheri and Chakala, which attracts maximum office commuters. Being visible from the WEH Flyover, the station is a perfect destination to target office goers with head offices of various big organisations located in the same region.

The exclusive advertising rights of Mumbai Metro are with Times OOH. Arghya Chakravarty, CEO, Times OOH, remarked, “We are delighted to have a leadership brand like Magicbricks as the first brand to take up the branding rights of the Metro station. We have acquired the advertising rights for all Metro stations in Mumbai from MMO. We see this as an innovative advertising option, having the potential to create a huge impact for any brand.”

In conversation with AdGully, Sudhir Pai and Achal Gupta, Brand Manager, Magicbricks.com, speak at length about the Metro branding right acquisition, the initiatives lined up, the challenges, opportunities and more.

AdGully: How much did the branding right costs?
Sudhir Pai: It is a substantive cost, however, we won’t be able to reveal the figure as it is confidential.

AdGully: What is the duration of the contract?
Sudhir Pai: It is a three-year contract and renewable every year.

AdGully: What kind of interactive elements do you propose to introduce for this Metro station?
Sudhir Pai: What we have got for now are the branding rights of the station and a lot of static and digital board visibility inside the station. What will come up a few weeks from now is an experience centre which will be interactive. That’s under tight wraps for now, but once it is operational, the experience centre will allow people to experience Magicbricks as well as the property buying process offline.

AdGully: What kind of branding activities does Magicbricks plan to undertake?
Achal Gupta: So far we have taken up static branding as well as digital branding at the station. The digital branding that we have taken is controlled from our Noida office, so whatever branding we want to put, we control it from there and whatever changes we want to do, we do it from there. And apart from that we have a digital ticker which tells about property rates and rents of various localities of Mumbai and it also gives information about the changes in property rates. For example, if the property rate in Andheri has gone up by 6 per cent, the digital ticker will tell you about that. These are the branding platforms that we have come up with in the first phase. Apart from that, as we have already said, we are coming up with an experience centre in the second phase.

AdGully: Are you in talks with other brands for outdoor advertising activities?
Achal Gupta: We don’t have anything finalised as of now. We will keep doing new stuff, come up with novel ideas that are different and which people haven’t explored yet. We are in touch of a lot of people, but nothing has been closed so far.

AdGully: Apart from WEH, is Magicbricks planning to take part in branding right exercises for other Metro stations in Mumbai?
Achal Gupta: We are not looking at other stations as of now. We are concentrating on WEH and will do more activities here.

Sudhir Pai: I think we will do a lot of activities outside the station as well. But doing one station on a line is sufficient.

AdGully: What are the kind of revenues that you are looking at from the branded Metro station?
Sudhir Pai: There might be a small revenue stream that comes out of some advertising that we earn. But this initiative has not been done for revenue. This is more of making the Magicbricks brand top-of-mind, driving preference for Magicbricks and creating utility value for consumers in this station. It is not really a revenue stream.

AdGully: What is the average daily footfall or passenger traffic at the WEH Metro station?
Achal Gupta: It is between 70,000 and 80,000 per day.

AdGully: Being the first branded Metro station in Mumbai, what are the kind of challenges that you are facing in terms of infrastructure, getting the entire operations in place?
Achal Gupta: We have been planning this whole branding activity for a very long time. The planning has happened over the last 5-6 months. It took a lot of rigorous work from the team to actually bring it live today. There were a lot of challenges, but the team has overcome everything.

Sudhir Pai: I think in the last two weeks, there were immense logistical challenges. The rains in Mumbai didn’t make life easy. That apart, all the work that was happening here with branding the station had to be done without any inconvenience to the commuters. So a lot of work was happening in the night. I think the team really slogged it out over the last two weeks, rains notwithstanding.