Rohit Nautiyal
OOH

Parivartan adds value to bus shelters with neons

The OOH arm of Jindal Stainless, as well as other agencies, has come up with neon-based innovations to meet the needs of clients

Parivartan, the OOH arm of Jindal Stainless (JSL) -- which owns the marketing rights of Delhi Transport Corporation's (DTC) 225 bus shelters -- now has more to offer its clients. Recently, Parivartan along with other outdoor agencies such as Platinum Outdoor, Primesite and Portland Outdoor, came up with a value-added solution -- providing the roof of bus shelters for branding.

The roof can be branded with taglines or special-offer announcements of brands. Interestingly, the text is created by molding acrylic sheets, which are lit with neon tubes. Clients can also choose a multi-coloured display, in which case the acrylic sheets are coloured before lighting.

Parivartan adds value to bus shelters with neons
Parivartan adds value to bus shelters with neons
Parivartan adds value to bus shelters with neons
Last month, Hindustan Times turned a new leaf with a 360-degree campaign that kicked off with outdoor. The national daily signed up for an innovation, wherein apart from putting up the standard creative on the bus shelter, the new tagline of the brand -- 'It is time' -- was placed on the roof of a bus shelter in Delhi. The tagline was made out of acrylic sheets lit with neon tubes.

Parivartan carried out a similar innovation for Samsung mobile phones, with the brand's tag line, 'Thodi Zindagi Chakh Lo' (Get a little taste of life).

Airtel is the latest brand to experiment with this innovation, by putting information related to its value added services (VAS), such as Special 5, and other customer services on bus shelters. While the telecom giant has chosen a colorful rooftop display to inform consumers that they can 'Start or stop a service anytime', a plain neon-lit display has been used to highlight the call rates of Special 5: Local @ 20 p/min. STD @ 50p/min.

Since the display takes up extra space on the bus shelter, DTC is compensated by paying a nominal fee. Also, clients are charged for this service, depending on the scale of the innovation.

An executive at Parivartan tells afaqs!, "Light emitting-diode (LED) and neons certainly have a bright future in India, largely in metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. Approximately two to three years down the line, we will have more LEDs and neons available with the media owners for advertisements. Presently, only telecom players are conversant with this media and are using it to enhance the recall value, as every player in the telecom arena wants premium sites with high visibility and bigger formats. Such innovations act as eye-catchers and capture the attention of the TG on a large scale."

Also, he reveals that various types of neons and LEDs have low maintenance costs and consume less electricity, as compared to regular conventional lights. Also, he feels there is a large section of people who fail to understand the advantages of using LEDs and neons, since they are under the illusion that these have high maintenance costs.

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