DMRC awards digital signage rights to RC&M, while Big Street bags premium Line V

Two contracts of duration of five years have been awarded recently, one to RC&M for installation and maintenance of LCD screens and another to Big Street for rights to Line V of DMRC

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has awarded the tender for the deployment of digital signage network solutions in Delhi Metro Railways to the RC&M group.

The contract, awarded for a period of five years, will involve the installation, operation and maintenance of LCD screens at metro stations such as Central Secretariat, Chandni Chowk and Chawri Bazar. RC&M bagged the tender after qualifying in the technical as well as commercial bid.

Primarily, the group's in-house wings, namely Truknox Technologies, along with Anitribe Productions and Tykod Media, will take charge of this project to provide innovative solutions for DMRC.

The company plans to install 46' LCD screens, the large format displays that are ideal for public facing applications to deliver more impactful solutions. The recce for those stations (with commuter footfall of more than 2 lakh per day) has already been done and the deployment will be completed by November.

The company is looking at 10 screens per station to start with. These LCD screens will not only give information related to DMRC but also run commercials and brand promos. "It is accepted worldwide that the customer attention increases 10 folds on a moving media as compared to a static media and if it's presented dynamically, the attention span, too, shoots up," says Rajesh Monga, managing director, RC&M.

Priya Monga, business head, RC&M says that the dynamic display is "not about the right portrayal of the intended message, that is, the USP (unique selling proposition) but also the generation of UBC (unique buying compulsion)".

In addition to this, Reliance Broadcast Network's (RBNL's) out of home vertical, Big Street, has been awarded the rights to Line V of DMRC for a five year period. The mandate includes OOH media inventory spread across nine super-premium underground stations spread over a 12 km stretch, covering VVIP areas including Udyog Bhawan, Race Course, Jorbagh, INA, AIIMS, Green Mark, Hauz Khas, Malviya Nagar and Saket.

This win strengthens the hold of RBNL on DMRC properties; it already holds the rights to Line III of DMRC for a five year period across 21 premium stations spread over a stretch of 33.5 km covering both west and central Delhi; and Line II, which passes through key areas such as Rajiv Chowk, Kashmiri Gate, Vishwa Vidyalay and Central Secretariat.

DMRC attracts approximately 1.5 million commuters on a daily basis, which makes it an attractive touch point for marketers. Discussing the DMRC Line V mandate, Rabe T Iyer, business head, out of home, experiential marketing and digital, Reliance Broadcast Network, says, "Our acquisition of Line V, coupled with our already existent inventory on Line II and III, gives RBNL a strategic advantage as we now hold a sizeable chunk of the OOH inventory at DMRC." He says that with the addition of new metro lines, DMRC is poised to expand the OOH market.