Branding bill boxes pays!

After providing and popularising easy bill payment services in Mumbai, Minc bill box will soon extend its services to cities such as Delhi, Punjab and Haryana

It’s a common sight to see bill payment boxes across all major metros. But in most of the cities, each company has its own drop box spread across the city. But, those at suburban railway stations in Mumbai are unique in itself. First it accepts cheques for all major service providers, be it credit cards, banks, telephone or mobile companies, or even electricity supplier. But that’s not all, these boxes installed by a company called Minc BillBox, the revolutionaries of this service also doubles up as an advertising platform for many brands.

So much so that the company claims to earn 25-30 per cent of its revenue from these branding exercises, according to Viraj Majmudar, promoter and managing director of Minc Billbox.

The advertisers are brought on board for a period of one month, during which all the 55 boxes are branded. Reliance Energy, Citi Financial, Sony Entertainment Television, Equal and Red FM are a few advertisers that have tied up with Minc.

The major attraction for advertisers, here, is that these bill boxes are located at strategic locations such as foot over bridges, where these advertisements get huge exposure, according to officials at Minc.

The branding for Equal, Amitabh Sahedev, general manager, Marketing, Merisant Indian Limited, says was a perfect fit. “This medium is effective as it provides strong brand recall and has a universal appeal delivering multiple visibilities at a local level.” The brand message on the bill boxes for Equal targeted the Mumbai local commuter, conveying the message to ‘Enjoy More’.

Red FM also ran a social awareness campaign though the bill boxes urging people to pay their bills on time, ("Bill bharte raho, Red FM bajaate raho”) as part of their overall campaign. Anuj Singh, head, Marketing, RED FM, Mumbai hails it as having great penetration and ability to garner a lot of eyeballs.

Minc BillBox now plans to take this service to other cities. In about two months the bill boxes will be installed in the cities of Haryana, Punjab and Delhi at high traffic areas, such as local transport, malls, multiplexes etc.

In Mumbai, Minc BillBox has installed the bill collection boxes at railway stations in all three zones- Central, Western and Harbour. “We have bill boxes at all prominent stations in Mumbai accounting to 55 boxes at 52 stations” says Murtuza Kagalwala, media consultant, Minc BillBox. In Mumbai, these have been installed in residential areas covering 110 societies.

A major portion of company’s revenue also comes from companies for which the bill collections are made. The list boasts of names such as HSBC, Deutsche bank, ING Vysya, ICICI, Reliance, Airtel, Hutch and Tata Indicom among other 38 companies.

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