How ‘Regionification’ and contextual marketing has fortified redBus’ business impact

In conversation with Adgully, Pallavi Chopra, Chief Marketing Officer, redBus, delves into the strategic approach behind the company’s successful ‘Travel to Vote’ and ‘Seat Guarantee’ campaigns, which leveraged contextual marketing to capitalize on the unique travel peaks during the recent 2024 Lok Sabha election period. Chopra shares insights on how redBus tailored its messaging and media to effectively cater to the spike in bus travel seen during elections, resulting in a record number of seats booked in a single day. She also discusses the challenges faced during the campaign, the impact on business metrics, and the lessons learned that will influence future marketing strategies.

Could you describe the strategic approach redBus took with the ‘Travel to Vote’ campaign and how it was tailored to meet the unique travel peaks during the election period?

We took a strategic decision to use contextual and moment marketing at a national level to effectively cater to the spike in bus travel seen during elections. The message and medium was contextualized to the ‘moment’ – the election period – to maximize business impact. Let me go through each aspect.

During elections, we know that news viewership increases and viewers are tuned for ‘breaking news’. Keeping this in mind, redBus strategically chose to dominate the news genre by advertising its election sales in this space on TV and digital platforms. We were probably the only brand which ran customised campaigns in regional TV news channels as well as national Hindi channels like AajTak, corresponding to the states’ election phases. Our aim was to let users know about easy accessibility and affordable travel for voters to return to their hometowns to cast their ballot. We connect close to 10,000 unique towns across 4.2 lakh routes and so we were very well placed to help passengers even to remote areas.

Our innovative ad format was contextualized for news channels and designed to cut through the clutter – our ads looked like they were ‘breaking news’. This concept was fantastically executed by our creative agency Leo Burnett. Together, they helped us break through the clutter and grab eyeballs – in fact, we had news channels calling us to understand if redBus would advertise with them!

This strategy of moment marketing had a significant impact on business. redBus hit a record number of seats booked in a single day.

What were the key that challenges you faced while implementing the ‘Seat Guarantee Sale’ campaign, and how did redBus overcome them to ensure passenger confidence and satisfaction?

The summer travel trends which we have relied on historically were naturally disrupted by the elections this year. So, the first order of business was to accurately identify travel demand peaks. For this, we used our data forecasting tool to accurately predict expected travel across multiple states – many of them going to elections simultaneously. A lot of this forecast happened with a very short lead time – in some cases as little as 10-15 days! Within this tight timeline, we had to cater to huge travel demands. In Tamil Nadu, the first state to go to elections, the forecasted travel demand was as high as Diwali!

We correctly anticipated that the biggest events – elections and IPL – would completely dominate viewer mindshare. To get any share of voice at all, we would have to come up with a concept which was completely out of the box. I think we achieved this very well with our ad campaign.

The ‘Breaking News’ format was a unique approach for your TV campaign. Could you explain why this format was chosen and how it contributed to the campaign’s success?

The ‘Breaking News’ format was chosen for our TV campaign to leverage the high viewership of news channels during the election season. By contextualizing our messaging device to the news genre, redBus aimed to break through the advertising clutter. The content looked organic and flowed seamlessly into the channel format, looking like native content.

On top of it, we played our ads exclusively as stings, which allowed the ad to flow seamlessly into news segment, almost looking like native content!

This unique approach allowed us to effectively engage a large audience tuned into election coverage, significantly contributing to the campaign’s success.

With the ‘Travel to Vote’ and ‘Seat Guarantee’ campaigns reaching millions of viewers, how did redBus ensure effective engagement and conversion from these ads?

redBus’ campaign led to a great increase in searches of redBus platforms (app and website), transactions, acquisition of new customers, and engagement rate compared to that of last year. We saw that customer transactions during the campaign period were 123% of transactions in the same period in 2023, across the country. I think the sheer number of eyeballs grabbed and attention captured also increased, as the number of new customers acquired on redBus platforms was 111% of the same period in 2023. In fact, there was an acceleration of new users coming to our platform and we saw a week on week growth in the number of new users within the peak election season itself. For example, with our sale, which corresponded to Phase 3 and 4 of the elections, we saw a 30% growth in new users compared to the previous week.

Could you share some insights on the impact of these campaigns on redBus’ business metrics, such as the increase in bookings, customer acquisition, and engagement rates?

During the election dates in April and May 2024, redBus saw an unprecedented number of travellers, because it is obviously a high activity period. In the campaign period, searches were 119% of searches on redBus platforms (app and website) in the same period in 2023. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in particular responded positively to redBus’ election related campaigns. In the campaign period, searches were 150% of the same period in 2023, on redBus platforms (app and website). The campaign was also very successful in Uttar Pradesh, where there was about a 150% increase in searches, transactions and new customers acquired compared to the same period in 2023. Engagement rate on communications (app notifications) to existing users was 160% of the engagement rate for the same period last year.

How did redBus leverage digital platforms differently compared to traditional media in these election-related campaigns, and what were the outcomes of this strategy?

redBus approached this campaign with a ‘Regionification’ strategy, through which our digital campaign targeted both brand awareness and performance campaigns in Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, and Bengali, using a combination of ‘breaking news’ format and other thematic messages. We targeted consumers with a high affinity for news consumption – both through the appropriate regional TV channels and on digital platforms.

The campaign included digital display ads on Meta and Google, digital video ads through YouTube bumpers, and various performance campaigns, including UAC and others. The reach for the digital campaign alone was approximately 170 million in 4 days – that’s 50% of India’s online transactors!

What lessons did redBus learn from these election-related campaigns that will influence future marketing strategies, especially in terms of moment marketing and contextual advertising?

redBus gained valuable insights from its high intensity seasons which we will implement in future marketing strategies, particularly our insights regarding moment marketing and contextual advertising. While we have executed contextual marketing in the past, we saw business impact amplified during this campaign by leveraging a winning combination of context, media and messaging which resonated deeply with the target audience.

In particular, the efficacy of the ‘Travel to Vote’ and ‘Seat Guarantee’ Election Sale campaigns demonstrated the importance of agile strategy adjustments to meet changing consumer behaviour.

The campaigns highlighted the effectiveness of anticipating and catering to spikes in travel demand. Moving forward, redBus will continue leveraging moment marketing strategies to align with significant events and capitalize on high-engagement contexts, ensuring campaigns resonate deeply with target audiences and drive measurable business impact.