OOH firm Hype in content tie-up with digital agency Phonethics
03 Feb 2009
Hype Integrated Communication, an OOH media company has tied up with Phonethics, a digital agency to manage content for the Western Railways' LCDs installed in various suburban trains.
Hype had recently partnered with Western Railways in Mumbai to install LCD screens in all its 67 trains.
Phonethics will be responsible for creating and aggregating the content to be showcased on the LCD screens. The content developed by the digital agency will be part of a 30-minutes video clip which will be repeated for 18 hours in a day. The same video clip will be aired for seven days.
The idea behind developing a video clip of 30 minutes duration lies in the fact that a passenger commutes in a Mumbai local train for an average of 15-30 minutes.
About 15 minutes of the clip will be based on content such as jokes, 'shayari' and thought of the day; Bollywood content; video clips showing yoga and physical exercises that can be done while commuting; and travel related clips. Another six minutes will be dedicated to branded contests, quizzes and polls. The remaining nine minutes will be pure advertising.
The quizzes, contests and polls will be incorporated to build interactivity in the content. The viewers can send in their replies for any contest or poll via SMS. The interactivity will be a means to measure the traffic and the popularity of the content.
Phonethics will also outsource content from other national and international content owners. For instance, it is talking to some international content producers to include action related video clips such as Formula 1 racing in the content.
Hype Integrated Communication has already tested the content on a Mumbai local train that runs from Borivali and Churchgate. Hype Integrated Communication will handle the ad sales function for the content displayed on the LCD screens.