Storyboard | From ticket counter to online booking: Why travellers from small cities switched to redBus post-pandemic

The subsidiary of MakeMyTrip has launched two 30-second ad films as part of the month-long campaign outlining the benefits of booking on redBus in contrast to offline methods.

Pallavi Chopra, SVP, brand and head of marketing, redBus says the company is attracting a different kind of user segment because of the pandemic. “Pre-pandemic, our typical user would be a salaried IT industry employee who is travelling home over the weekend from Bengaluru to Hyderabad. Now, we are witnessing a surge of customers from smaller cities,” she notes.

To be sure, the contribution in terms of booking from tier II and III market has gone up about 10 percent post-pandemic, increasing from 56 percent to 66 percent on redBus.

“This new user segment undertakes intra-state business travel. The bookings are being done last minute. Given the new kind of target audience that we have to talk to, the company has decided to take a mass approach to marketing,” Chopra adds.

Chopra explains that one seemingly obvious but key insight that the firm zeroed in on is that online booking offers users the ability to book a seat of their choice while travelling.

“The offline route, through an agent or booking counter, doesn’t offer this service. This became a key highlight of our campaign,” she shares.

Made by advertising agency McCann Bengaluru, the two ads show real-life scenarios of travellers going through the hassle of booking an offline ticket or trying to grab the seat of their choice, which is nothing short of a drama. The ads brought exaggerated comic moments and demonstrated the extent to which the travellers could go to book a seat.

In one of the ad films, we see a theatre setting and a play titled, ‘Hot seat ka natak’. Soon there appears a bus in tableau style, as the curtain draws. The sight inside the bus is nothing short of a battle zone as passengers race and scramble to grab a seat - a scene typical of the pre-digital era of bus travel, which still persists where seat reservation systems are absent. The focus then shifts to a person who is in the audience, seated comfortably and amused by the scene playing out. He exclaims sarcastically, ‘Apni manpasand bus seat paane ke liye itna naatak’ and suggests downloading redBus app.

Talking about the client brief, Dileep Ashoka, EVP, McCann South says that booking a bus ticket especially that of the State Road Transport bus means having to stand in long queues, braving the elements, and, despite this long wait, there is no guarantee of getting the seat of one’s choice.

"This reality on the ground only heightens the concerns of travellers when it comes to their safety, in this pandemic-affected world. The idea was to amplify the problem of booking a bus ticket at the retail counter and the anxiety to get the seat of one’s choice through the campaign," he notes.

In order to capitalise and cater to the higher intent for travel during the festive period, redBus plans to run these ads across television, digital and social media platforms. The focus will be on key growth markets in the western region including Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan along with Andhra Pradesh. It will also be promoted across our emerging markets in the North and West Bengal.

“Between the first and second COVID-19 wave, we saw 80 percent recovery in our bookings despite the fact that our core TG (salaried individuals) continue to work from home,” says Chopra, as more travellers switched to online ticket booking. She adds that redBus is poised for growth when the full recovery happens.