New Delhi: The ubiquitous auto rickshaw, the common man's transport, is gradually transforming into a new avatar — an unconventional yet cost-effective advertising tool.
The auto rickshaws advertise many websites on their backs and on their hoods, spelling booming business for the sites that one would not have known about.
"Advertising on the back of auto rickshaws has been a tremendous experience for us. What we got was beyond our expectations," says Faisal I Farooqui, founder and chief executive of MouthShut.com.
"We started this way back in 2001 in Mumbai when no one came out with such a concept, and I wanted to build a brand on a medium which would have a high recall value," Farooqui added.
"A billboard in Mumbai's posh Marine Drive area would cost somewhere around Rs.10 to 15 lakh. After this campaign we now experience more than 30 million page views a month," Farooqui said.
This idea quickly came to the notice of potential advertisers who understood the benefits attached to the rickety auto.
"This innovative brand-building exercise struck me after I saw MouthShut.com and it has been a success since then," averred Siddhaartha Vaid of stickiewicket.com, a cricket website.
"I tried stickers but those are not permanent. After that we started painting the hood of the autos," added Vaid.
The mode of payment to the auto rickhaw owners is one-time which can range anything from Rs.30-100 and the quality of the paint used in writing the name of the website on the hood of the auto cannot be easily removed. Each company targets around 100-150 autos.
And to avoid getting duped, photographs of the autos are maintained in these companies' records.
"We sometimes provide incentives like if an auto owner comes back after six months and if the name is still there, we pay him an amount," said Rakesh Verma, CEO of mapmyindia.com, a portal which deals with navigation features and interactive mapping system.
Aditya Malik, 21-year-old CEO of gogurgaon.com, who also started the same method of catching the eyeballs last four months, stated: "We didn't want to spend a huge amount in advertising and this form of campaigning cost us one-fifth of the normal form."
These companies have their own research team who do a complete socio-economic research to understand where their potential customer base is and target the autos of those areas. However, the painters are in some cases outsourced.
Adman Prasoon Joshi, executive chairman of McCann Erickson ad agency, told IANS: "This is an unconventional form of advertising which reaches the contact points. This kind of advertising is most welcome and it is going to be the future of advertising in India.
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