Tuesday 19 November 2013

Advertising coming to city circle trains

Four companies have won the right to advertise in Yangon’s circular trains, Myanma Railways says – but only the newer cars seem to be drawing the eyes of advertisers.

Tenders to display ads on the city’s commuter trains were announced in state-run papers in mid-October as part of government efforts to reduce losses on the service.

The highest bid was received for an air-con train with five carriages, with Myanmar Distribution Group agreeing to pay K20 million a year to advertise.

Tenders for Japanese-made rail bus engine trains opened at K675,000 per year and were won by three companies. New Life Advertising Group will advertise on five trains, at a cost of K1.458 million a year for each train, while Paing & Paing Co, Ltd and ABC Media Group agreed to pay the same amount for one train each.

No bids were received to advertise on the route’s 14 ordinary trains.

Companies had from November 1 to 14 to outfit the carriages with ads and the one-year contracts began on November 15.

It is not the first time advertising on trains has been introduced. In 1994-95, the circle trains boasted advertisements from army-owned Bandoola International Limited, shilling commodities and juice using ads applied directly to the train bodies using enamel paint. The government suspended the plan in 1996 on aesthetic grounds.

U Htun Aung Thin, Myanma Railways’ general manager for lower Myanmar, said enamel paint can ruin the trains so the new advertisements will be applied using stickers. He said advertising is prevalent on other forms of public transport in Yangon.

“Public transportation and city taxis allow advertisements and they earn money from it,” he said, giving the example of Bandoola Transportation Company, which earns K400,000 a year from ads on its buses and K200,000 from each vehicle in its taxi fleet.

source: The Myanmar Times

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