Maharashtra Non-Ac buses: A go-to advertising medium for reaching masses!

Transit advertising plays a crucial role in engaging customers outside their homes. Be it buses, auto-rickshaw, bus shelters, metro trains, metro station or parking spaces, you will see a lot advertising material displayed through hoardings, billboards , posters and banners to get the audience’s attention. Outdoor advertising is aimed at connecting with the ‘mass audience’ to achieve advertising objectives such as brand awareness, building positive brand image, infusing brand familiarity and last but not the least expanding brand’s reach and visibility.

Maharashtra is known for its popular cities like Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Nasik and many more. The cities are well connected with through Maharashtra bus system popularly known as MSRTC (Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation). The buses run by the government board include both AC and non-ac buses. The ac buses have higher fare than the non-ac buses. Therefore, if a brand wishes to target the local audience and create high brand awareness than advertising in the local non-ac buses of Maharashtra shall be a perfect fit to an advertising campaign.

MSRTC have a fleet of 18,449 buses that connect various towns and cities as well as neighboring states. The average daily ridership of Maharashtra buses is 8.7 million. This indicates the dependence of daily commuters on the efficient state run buses of Maharashtra. The voluminous ridership of both ac and non-ac buses make them an appropriate advertising tool especially for disseminating brand message to mass audience. Moreover, if a brand’s advertising goal is to maximize its reach and visibility across masses than it must opt for advertising exclusively in non-ac buses of Maharashtra as the ridership of non-ac buses is slightly higher than that of ac-buses.

Here are a few advantages of advertising in MSRTC non-ac buses:

• The bus fare of non-ac buses is cheaper than ac-buses which make them a popular choice for short-distance travelers and daily commuters like office employees and school and college students.
• Daily exposure of ads in non-ac buses built brand familiarity and reinforces brand image which in-turn helps the prospective customers to pick the advertised brand first over other brands in the store as they quickly associate the brand with advertisements they have seen on daily basis on non-ac buses.
• Non-ac buses have huge space to facilitate the enormous ridership and therefore, the brands can fully utilize it for advertising purposes. The brands can put of advertising material on the back panel and side panel of the buses. The brands can also engage in internal bus branding by putting up ads inside the buses. Like on the seat packs, handle bars, pamphlet distribution, free sample distribution or product demo.
• Non-Ac buses reach prime areas of the city like commercial areas, central-market areas, residential areas, metro stations etc. Their reach can be converted into the brand’s reach by putting up advertising material on these buses.

Brands that can benefit from advertising on non-ac buses of Maharashtra:

• Banking and financial services.
• Healthcare services.
• FMCG Brands.
• Entertainment and Internet Streaming services.