BookMyShow goes mainstream

After more than a decade in the business of online ticketing, portal BookMyShow (BMS) is rolling out its first mainstream campaign. This will be accompanied by a change in the look of the brand, its logo (pictured here) and positioning.

BMS' new logo harks back to a ticket stub. "We wanted our identity to reflect in the logo. We realised we are most comfortable being an online ticketing site that assures efficiency and convenience to the users," says Ashish Hemrajani, co-founder, BookMyShow.

The colour recalls the concepts of the red carpet and the team colours of many sports teams like Ferrari (in Formula 1 racing) and Manchester United (football) - all to do with entertainment.

The portal has adopted the tagline My Show. My time. My Seat, to emphasise that satisfying the customer's choice of movie, cinema hall and seat at the time she wants is the aim of BMS. BMS' promotional video was released in movie theatres across the country on the 15th of November with the release of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Ram Leela and Kangana Ranaut-starrer Rajjo. The campaign consists of a series of commercials, each on a genre of Bollywood movies. The ads will be cut down to 30 seconds for TV, played across Hindi and English movie, youth and music channels and English entertainment channels.

"We realised that a lot of people lose their online transaction virginity to BookMyShow. This means our processes are simple enough for the first-time customers. We provide the convenience of booking tickets anytime and anywhere through our mobile app," says Hemrajani.

The estimated expenditure on this marketing exercise is in the range of Rs 9 crore to Rs 11 crore, according to sources. The commercial has been created by Lowe Lintas, while the media agency on record is GroupM's Mindshare.

The portal's mobile app has met with success. Hemrajani reveals that the mobile platform is growing at an unprecedented pace and has contributed largely to the 70 per cent growth that the company has seen over the past five years. The new and improved BMS app will be launched in the coming weeks with improved features. The company has already launched its revamped website last week.

Apart from movies, BMS is the exclusive ticketing partner for events such as the Indian Premier League, Sunburn, NH7 Weekender and the Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix. The outdoor advertising for the portal is usually taken care of by the partnering event as a call-to-action.

The portal, which is owned by Network18-backed Bigtree Entertainment, raised Rs 100 crore through funding by Accel Partners. The funds will be used for increasing the portal's presence in the tier II and III towns and cities and for increasing its non-movie ticketing business. "Though we did not need the money in the last funding, one thing I have learnt is to always raise money when you do not need it. It is a business at the end of the day," says Hemrajani.

An initial public offering listing has not been ruled out, but may take another three-four years.

KEY FACTS

• Launched in 1997
• Owned by Bigtree Entertainment (a Network18 company)
• BookMyShow contributes more than 80% to online ticketing and 10% to overall box-office collections