DMRC will play Audio advertisements on some trains of the Violet Line on an experimental basis
Marketing based on audio has been gaining traction as an income model for a few metro networks in the past few years. (sound advertisements)
New Delhi: The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation(DMRC) will soon begin broadcasting audio advertisements on six trains along the Violet Line as a pilot project over a year, the officials said.
The ads, which will be aired in conjunction with announcements of new stations along the Kashmere Gate-Badarpur line, will be broadcast on a trial basis for a year starting this month. “Based on the feedback received from this pilot project, this revenue-generating avenue may be expanded to other lines as well,” said Anuj Dayal, the chief executive director of corporate communications for DMRC.
The idea of audio in train advertisements was conceived by a firm owned by Shammi Narang, who voiced the male announcements on the Metro in the last two decades.
“His (Narang’s) firm has been providing in-train and in-station audio content to Delhi Metro for the last two decades and shall be implementing this new project, that is in-train audio advertisements, in association with DMRC,” Dayal added, adding that the advertisements will be inserted between obligatory service announcements.
Audio-based marketing has been gaining traction as an income model for specific metro networks in the last few years. For example, Line 1 of the Mumbai Metro (Versova to Ghatkopar) broadcasts audio advertisements in between announcements.
Officials stated that the Delhi metro service, which was shut down during the COVID-19 epidemic, was resumed in stages with various limitations. “Therefore, the revenue-generating streams available to DMRC were constrained to a large extent,” an official from the Metro said.
Officials claimed that audio ads were just one of the actions implemented by the Metro to increase revenues from other sources of revenue.
“Co-branding of stations and the launch of the ‘Momentum 2.0’ app are other such measures that have already been taken in recent times,” the official stated.
Commuters were, however, warned that DMRC must find the ideal balance.
Muskan Nanda, 24, who utilizes the Delhi metro for commuting between Subhash Nagar and Gurugram for work, told the Metro that it should ensure that these advertisements are not repeated over and over again.
“If advertisements are interspersed between the ads, I don’t think anyone are going to be averse. If there are multiple ads repeated back-to-back and the volume is very high, it might cause some to be annoyed,” she said; she added that it could cause it to be more challenging to concentrate on the announcements on the coming stations.
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