Bangalore :The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL), has made what appears to be a successful unique attempt to earn revenue through co branding.  The effort  appears to have been reasonably successful, according to  U.A. Vasanth Rao, General Manager (Finance), BMRCL He said a tender issued on July 9 for co-branding of Trinity Metro Station has received a ‘very good’ response. The tender now goes from the technical bid to the financial bid and officials hope for the same result.

Mr. Rao said, “Mobile phone companies banks, real estate and financial companies in the vicinity of the station have also shown keen interest”.

Part of the co-branding initiative is to get the brand associated with names of stations. So, an instance of the announcement that would be made is: You are approaching ‘Trinity (brand name) Station’. Mr. Rao said BMRCL is targeting only ‘big brands’, i.e. companies in the big league with a turnover of above Rs. 1,000 crore, to partner as advertisers.

Besides a 10 ft X 5 ft kiosk to showcase the company’s products, its signage will appear every five minutes (when Namma Metro is fully operational) with the brand name mentioned 1,000 times in announcements .

Co-branding would be done ‘wherever feasible’ at other Metro stations as well. The aim was to get a share of people’s mind space with ‘gentle’ advertising that would subtly persuade commuters through visual and audio media, he said.