MILESTONE - Impossible turned possible by Peacock Media
What next? This is the query, which keeps media industry on its toes and
they all are looking for the new media options. The latest addition to everincreasing
list of advertising medium is the trains of Indian Railways. In a
yet another path breaking initiative, the Northern Railway, on the concept
of “Public-Private Partnership” has come forward to provide passengers a
never before travelling experience and earn for themselves great revenues
by providing advertising opportunities to corporates in and around the
passenger train coaches. Mumbai based Peacock Media takes the lead and
enable first such train to carry a moving message all around.
Indian Railways on its way to
open out-of-home advertising
market, could earn more than
Rs 2000 crore each year over the
next 2-3 years by allowing
advertising on nearly 300 major
trains, including Rajdhanis and
Shatabdis. All regular inter-city
mail and express trains might have
colour advertisements on the
exterior of coaches. Moreover,
they also have plans for providing
onboard infotainment channels on
trains specifically like the Shatabdi
Express. For this plasma TV
screens may be put up in the
compartments where
advertisements would be allowed.
Bulk advertising rights for set of
trains in different rail zones may
be granted to individual firms or
consortiums. And to start off this
journey, Peacock Media Ltd
(PML) with Bharti Airtel Ltd and
CTS Management (Eureka
Forbes) have become the
pioneers to lead.
The first train – Rajdhani Express
(Hazrat Nizamuddin-Bangalore),
which was all decked up with
Airtel branding went on its
maiden voyage from Nizamuddin
station in New Delhi on April 8,
08 and the team behind it looked
very happy, “It took around 5-6
hrs to print the entire vinyl for
the train on our two HPScitex
Turbojets UV machines and
around 10 days to prepare the
surface and apply the vinyl. We
have printed around 30,000 sq ft
of vinyl for all the coaches of this
train,” shared Sandeep Chawla,
chairman and MD, PML.
It was Airtel branding all over and
inside the coaches, with an
international feel. To maintain the
quality, ISO 9001:2000 certified
Peacock Media has taken extra
care while choosing materials and
media for the same, “Once the
branding is done, it should safely
last for desired period of time. We
have used high-quality UV inks,
which are crack resistant on cast
vinyl, RDSO approved, and on top
it is overlaminated. We have
chosen it all as per harsh Indian
weather conditions,” said Kuljit
Suri, joint MD, PML. “Quality
control is our prime concern and
we had done several rigorous
testing of materials. All our
material specifications are as per
RDSO parameters,” Kuljit added.
The passengers of these trains
will be provided with upgraded
on board services like high quality
flooring, neat and clean toilets,
soap dispensers, tissue paper
dispensers, deodorant based
toilet flushing system and
professionally trained on board
housekeeping staff to maintain
these services throughout the
journey.
For such a big project, PML has
aptly chosen Hewlett Packard
(HP) as their print partner. Paresh
Shetty, Graphics and Imaging
business manager, HP, while
expressing his delight on seeing
the branded train, said, “HP is
looking to encourage its print
partners to innovate creative
options and enhance their graphic
producing capabilities. Inside the
coaches more than 400 branded
posters printed on HP designjet
5500 are installed with aluminium
frames. This initiative has given a
new medium in out-of-home to
advertisers to communicate with
the consumers. Vinyl wrap on
trains will give a good competition
to the existing media options like
billboards and bus-q-shelters.”
With the implementation of
such “PPP” (Public-Private
Partnersship) models, Indian
Railways will not only save the cost
of providing and maintaining such
upgraded services, but also will
earn goodwill of the passengers
along with a healthy revenue in the
form of license fee.
Peacock Media Ltd, an out-ofhome,
multi-platform, lifestyle
media company has expertise in
indoor and outdoor visual
communication concepts and
solutions. They build this new
medium for Indian out-of-home
industry by means of this innovative
idea of vinyl wrapping the entire
exterior of the coaches giving these
trains a totally new look and feel.
At the same time it will also
protect the exteriors of these
coaches from the diversified
weather conditions through which
these trains operate.
As an intelligent move for making
it big, PML has equipped itself
well. Of late, Mumbai-based,
Peacock Media Ltd has installed
two HP Scitex TurboJet 8500
printers at their Mumbai facility.
This is an industrial grade highspeed
digital printer, which uses
UV cured inks. The advantages of
using UV cured inks are that
output is instantly dry and image
is lightfast, waterproof (depending
on media), and eco-friendly.
TourboJet 8500 prints in 6-colour
with resolution of 600dpi in high
quality mode and 448dpi in quality
mode and has maximum media
width of 1.65 metres x 3.70
metres and maximum print width
of 1.58 metres x 3.60 metres.
In its pilot project, the train will
run at three routes i.e. Delhi -
Chennai, Delhi - Hyderabad -
Bangalore and Delhi-Trivandrum
and the success of this project
would open new doors of
innovative ad media for advertisers.