Why brands should buy audio ads in Delhi Metro, explains Dishant Narang of Pindrop Metro Tech

Established in 1998 by Shammi Narang, a media industry professional who has lent his voice to over 90% of routine announcements for not just metros running in India but also a slew of public sector and private sector companies, Pindrop Media has always had a focus on audio advertising.

After joining the company in 2011, Dishant Narang is now tasked with managing the newest vertical of Pindrop Media, i.e- Pindrop Metro Tech, which is currently working in a Private Public Partnership model and therefore a revenue-sharing model, with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation for managing all the audio media placements, be it Audio Ads or Jingles, within Delhi Metro trains, exclusively.

Speaking to BestMediaInfo.com exclusively, Narang, Managing Partner, Pindrop Metro Tech, emphasised that in the past 25 years, the agency has had the fortune of providing its services to both the private sector as well as the public sector in equal measure and in doing so, DMRC has been one of the most cherished associates of the agency for the past more than two decades now.

“We feel that Delhi Metro is the best thing that has happened to the city of Delhi as it is something that has catapulted Delhi into a new league of metropolitans around the world and keeping that in mind, our first and foremost focus is on Delhi Metro. But apart from managing the audio ads running on various DMRC trains, we are also offering holistic solutions to brands and advertisers who wish to advertise in other metros where the service is currently available, i.e- Mumbai and Hyderabad, whether it is directly through us or our partners in those cities,” he said.

That being said, he also mentioned that since Delhi Metro is by far, the largest metro network in the country and is a bigger network than all other metros in India combined, whether it be in terms of ridership, track length, coverage and more, Pindrop Metro Tech in this current phase is only focused on rolling the ad solutions here in Delhi.

“Many times, brands and advertisers approached us to create in-metro audio ads for being placed on Mumbai Metro owing to our unparalleled technical expertise in audio production, be it in terms of how the audio has to be inside a metro keeping both external noise and ambient sound in mind. So that is when we had the idea of taking this proposal to DMRC. We went to them with our first proposal in July, this year, and by the end of October, we had the LOA,” he said.

Commenting on how the ad inventory is planned given that there is a 100% captive audience in metros, he mentioned that the idea is to only run ads in four formats- 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds and 30 seconds, and therefore the ads are slotted to run in tandem with the distance between stations.

Also, to ensure that the metro users’ journey is seamless and the ads aren’t intrusive, the ad insertions have been very strategically spaced out between select stations to have a considerable gap or silence period between them. What this does is, as per Narang, is that, this not only ensures passenger comfort but also ensures brand exclusivity for advertisers as that leads to higher retention and recall for that particular brand as well.

“We have very carefully and strategically identified only those journey sections where we have sufficient time to insert audio ads keeping in mind which are some of the very commercially viable hotspots to have a 50-50 ratio where A the amount of time available and B the commercial viability of a journey and only there are we inserting ads,” he said.

Furthermore, Narang also mentioned that Pindrop Metro Tech along with DMRC for this project has taken a thumb rule of one is to three and what that essentially means is that if there is a 30 seconds gap between two stations, what will play is a 10 seconder and there is a 20 seconds silence period and where there is a 60 seconds gap, a 20 seconds ad slot will be placed so that the remaining 40 seconds is again a silent period.

"There was also a bit of a scientific approach to it, keeping human psychology and technical factors in mind. For example, Delhi Metro Line 6 is both an underground and an overground line, and therefore the ads need to be inserted considering the different acoustic requirements in both cases,” he said.

Highlighting that Pindrop Media already has one of India’s biggest impanelment rosters of voice talent which helps Pindrop Metro Tech help clients not just in placing their ads but also in producing them, Narang opined that even when listenership is concerned, the beauty of this opportunity to have audio ad insertions in DMRC trains gives advertisers a captive audience like probably no other medium because unlike radio or TV, passengers don’t have an option to exit or switch the channel when the ad is running in a moving train.

“If someone is inside the train, they will consume the ad, be it consciously or subconsciously, and since there is only audio, there's only subliminal consumption that comes into play, unlike a poster or visual branding which will get missed if the passenger doesn’t turn around and has a look at it. However, when the audio is playing it all happens through airwaves therefore the passenger or the commuter will hear it,” he added.

Upon being questioned as to how is Pindrop Metro Tech looking at targeting specific audience segments given that Delhi Metro is an amalgamation of people from different age groups, genders, as well as economic backgrounds amongst other factors commuting from one place to another, Narang replied that to cater to this, what the audio media placement company has done is that it offers blanket packages as well as specific location packages to advertisers to target very specific regions.

Sharing some of the examples of the ads deployed on these lines, he mentioned that an auto brand had specifically chosen the metro trains running between Central Secretariat to Khan Market because they felt that their TG is more prevalent in that section, whereas a jewellery brand from Old Delhi specifically chose the trains running between Kashmiri Gate and Lal Qila as they thought their target audience majorly commutes in the particular line.

“The beauty of this offering is that the permutations and combinations are limitless. You can target section-wise if you want to go for a particular demographic and if you wish to encompass a wide variety of demographics through your campaign, then we have those options as well. But to be very honest, bigger brands are more interested in targeting all the sections and therefore they want to go for more blanket packages and even roadblock the inventory,” he said.

“In today's era of information overload, content clutter and hyper distractions, what advertisers very strongly seek are engaged and captive audiences and that is precisely what we strive to deliver, first and foremost. And secondly, the spacing out of ads and the exclusivity of airtime help brands get highlighted very prominently unlike any other audio advertising medium available at the moment,” he said while commenting on the USP of including in-metro audio ads in the media mix of brands.

He also went on to add that in times like these when the marketing environment has not just become all the more dynamic but also very volatile in terms of numbers, if there’s one thing that won’t be a fad and inaccurate would be DMRC’s numbers and if anything, the numbers will only further go up from where they are.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com