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Tag: Sharat Dhall

  • Yatra promotes travel in evergreen Bollywood style

    Yatra promotes travel in evergreen Bollywood style

    MUMBAI: Online travel portal Yatra has launched its new series of advertisement commercials featuring brand ambassador Ranbir Kapoor.

    The new TVCs present two unique customer friendly features in an entertaining manner using evergreen Bollywood movie songs with tailored lyrics. The ads have been created with a light-hearted and humorous tonality, making them fun to watch. The hummable ads also feature a ‘karaoke’ style format for those who wish to sing along.

    Conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather, the ad films reflect an exquisite blend of the contemporary world with the vintage charm of Indian cinema. Keeping in mind Yatra’s endeavour to make travel hassle-free, seamless and value adding to travellers, the two films highlight its eCash loyalty program, and its unique feature of protecting customers from a drop in airfare post them making a booking. eCash now not only gets a traveller discounts on future bookings, but is also transferable to friends and family, as well as convertible into shopping vouchers from Yatra’s partners. The ads feature Kapoor grooving to Clinton Cerejo’s beats, who has reworked the evergreen and classic tunes in his own inimitable way. This not only captivates the audiences by getting them to smile and hum along, but also reinforces Yatra’s brand message of being ‘India ka travel planner’.

    Commenting on the new TVC series, Yatra COO (B2C) Sharat Dhall says, “We are focused on innovating in terms of customer features and benefits, and this set of ads highlight two such industry first features–eCash loyalty points and the airfare-drop protection. With these films we are looking to attract new users to our fold, while retaining the connection with our existing customer base. The ads capture the best of Bollywood – entertaining, yet with a key consumer message, and hopefully will strike a chord with the audience.”

    Sharing his experience of working on the TVCs, Kapoor mentions, “Yatra has always managed to surprise me with its innovative ideas of engaging with travellers. I am delighted to also get the opportunity to pay a tribute to the evergreen members of my family via these unforgettably classic songs that are a part of these ads. It is a matter of honour and pride as Yatra’s brand ambassador.”

    Ogilvy & Mather, Kolkata creative head Dhruv Mookerji remarks, “Bollywood has left a lasting impression on the cultural psyche of the nation. And with Ranbir Kapoor as the brand ambassador of Yatra, it seemed a perfect fit to merge the unique positioning of Yatra with the great musical legacy of the Kapoor khandan.”

  • ‘India ka travel planner’ Yatra features Ranbir in new campaign

    MUMBAI: Yatra.com, one of India’s leading online travel portals, has unveiled its latest advertising campaign featuring their new brand ambassador, Ranbir Kapoor. 

    The campaign introduces Yatra’s new brand proposition of being ‘India ka travel planner’, which resonates with its marketplace model. As a travel marketplace, Yatra caters to all types of travelers keeping in mind the change in behavior and evolving needs of the consumers.

    The ad film is set in a hyper-real realm taking the viewers into a world which is magical and invokes fantasy, which is what travel is all about. Since Yatra and its ambassador Ranbir Kapoor both exude youthfulness, modernity and ease, the soundtrack of the film has been created in such a manner that it brings out these traits effectively. 

    Moreover, the contemporary musical score featuring the catchphrase “Koi Nikal Pada Hai ” encourages each and everyone to travel. The film starts with the context of ‘Yatra’ which connotes travel and then seamlessly moves to individual products and preferences people have, thus, showcasing the depth of Yatra’s product and services. 

    The film also brings out the acting prowess of Ranbir in a very creative manner.

    Yatra.com COO (B2C) Sharat Dhall said, “With the launch of the new brand identity and the recent appointment of Ranbir as our brand ambassador, the idea is to create a brand connect with the new age Indian traveller and position Yatra as a versatile platform that has something to offer to everyone. Communicating the idea that we are ‘India ka travel planner’ is what the new campaign reflects.”

    Yatra.com CMO Vikrant Mudaliar said, “Yatra as a brand understands varied consumer preferences, hence, caters to all kinds of travellers and for all kinds of travel. Whether you are a conventional tourist, an experimental traveller or an adventurous explorer, you will always find a suitable solution on Yatra.com. The film in a very creative manner showcases the ever expanding portfolio of travel products which Yatra has and the contrasting target audience which it caters to, thus, making it India’s travel planner.”

    This film crafted by Ogilvy & Mather will use digital and television as the lead mediums.

  • Ranbir Kapoor is Yatra’s brand ambassador

    MUMBAI: Yatra.com, one of India’s leading online travel portal, has announced Bollywood superstar and youth icon, Ranbir Kapoor, as their brand ambassador. Popularly known for portraying versatile and youthful roles on screen, Ranbir Kapoor is a perfect fit for the brand. Just like Yatra, he is a leader in his Industry and is technologically savvy, modern and has a passion for travelling. In his cinematic journey as well, travel has always played an important part.

    Speaking on the association, Sharat Dhall, COO(B2C), Yatra.com, said, “Today, Yatra is an evolved and contemporary travel marketplace which stands apart for the richness of its product & services. Ranbir’s persona is in line with these qualities, and he also brings with him a sense of casual coolness that today’s youth relates to. We welcome him to the Yatra family and hope that with this association we are able to create a strong impact in the minds of our audiences and customers at large.”

    Speaking on the partnership, Ranbir Kapoor said, “I am an avid traveler myself and travel has played an important part in my films. So a partnership with a travel brand like Yatra was a natural fit for me. I am particularly excited to be a part of this new journey and am looking forward to a long & fulfilling ‘Yatra’ with the brand.”

    Vikrant Mudaliar, Chief Marketing Officer, Yatra.com, said, “With Ranbir Kapoor coming on board, we are confident of strengthening Yatra’s brand appeal and recall amongst our customers. Today, Yatra is bursting with new ideas, and we wanted our brand ambassador to exude similar qualities, hence, Ranbir was our natural choice. We are confident that this association will help us stand out in an increasingly cluttered media environment. Ranbir appeals to all age groups and demographics across the board and we are excited about using him in our marketing communication. ”

  • Yatra.com launches ‘light weight app’ Yatra Mini

    Yatra.com launches ‘light weight app’ Yatra Mini

    MUMBAI: Yatra.com has launched a new mobile application, Yatra Mini, targetting value seeking travellers featuring bus, train and budget hotel bookings. The key feature of the app is that it is extremely lightweight at only approx. 4.5 MB and is fast loading even in poor network areas.

    The app is built to cater even to lower end android phones and is supported by Android 4 & above. The other features include multi-lingual travel app in Hindi & English with more regional languages such as Tamil, Bangla, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu being added very soon to cater to the non-English audiences across the country.

    As per a recent report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), India has 402 million Internet users as of December 2015, thereby overtaking the US in total Internet users. A lot of this growth has come from rural India which has witnessed a 99 percent surge in mobile internet users and now has over 80 million users. the most exciting news in this rural India growth story is the demography: 75 percent of Internet users from rural India are in the age group of 18-30 years and Yatra.com is looking to catch them early in their journey of online travel bookings with the Yatra Mini application.

    Yatra.com president Sharat Dhall said, “Yatra is very focused on the needs of the Indian traveller and in this case, we have identified a clear gap in the market with no one catering to a very large and rapidly growing segment of mobile users, who access the internet using their entry level smartphones, and are seeking an app that enables them to make their bookings speedily and does not occupy much memory space. By offering this app in regional languages, we are also tapping into the non-English traveller who is looking to shift to the convenience of online booking. We also researched the needs of this traveller and based on the findings, limited the product offerings to bus, train and budget hotel bookings so that the app is sharply focused on the needs of this segment.”

    While India is witnessing a massive rise in smartphone user base, connectivity continues to be a serious limitation for easy usage of internet services. Keeping that in mind Yatra.com claims to have designed the Yatra Mini to work well in poor network and use very little data. It comprises of easy to configure components and can be changed/modified without an app release thus further reducing the data usage.

    To make the app user friendly, Yatra Mini offers help to travellers to view their upcoming, completed and cancelled trips .All details of trips will be available like journey date, passenger details, bus operator details, boarding point details, cancellation policy, fare & payment details etc. The app provides flexible cancellation options for bus and train tickets. There are ooptions to resend e-tickets on email and SMS and options to contact the Yatra Helpdesk as well.

    Apart from all the above features, Yatra is launching the app with lucrative loyalty offers like option to use earned eCash on trains and bus bookings.

     For Train Bookings eCash redemption is 10 percent of booking value

     For Bus Bookings eCash redemption is 5 percent of booking value

    Also to enable users to share the app with their friends and motivate them to use the app, Yatra is offering ‘refer and earn’ options wherein users can refer their friends and earn 1000 eCash. The friend being referred will also earn 1500 eCash to use on their bookings.

  • Yatra.com launches ‘light weight app’ Yatra Mini

    Yatra.com launches ‘light weight app’ Yatra Mini

    MUMBAI: Yatra.com has launched a new mobile application, Yatra Mini, targetting value seeking travellers featuring bus, train and budget hotel bookings. The key feature of the app is that it is extremely lightweight at only approx. 4.5 MB and is fast loading even in poor network areas.

    The app is built to cater even to lower end android phones and is supported by Android 4 & above. The other features include multi-lingual travel app in Hindi & English with more regional languages such as Tamil, Bangla, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu being added very soon to cater to the non-English audiences across the country.

    As per a recent report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), India has 402 million Internet users as of December 2015, thereby overtaking the US in total Internet users. A lot of this growth has come from rural India which has witnessed a 99 percent surge in mobile internet users and now has over 80 million users. the most exciting news in this rural India growth story is the demography: 75 percent of Internet users from rural India are in the age group of 18-30 years and Yatra.com is looking to catch them early in their journey of online travel bookings with the Yatra Mini application.

    Yatra.com president Sharat Dhall said, “Yatra is very focused on the needs of the Indian traveller and in this case, we have identified a clear gap in the market with no one catering to a very large and rapidly growing segment of mobile users, who access the internet using their entry level smartphones, and are seeking an app that enables them to make their bookings speedily and does not occupy much memory space. By offering this app in regional languages, we are also tapping into the non-English traveller who is looking to shift to the convenience of online booking. We also researched the needs of this traveller and based on the findings, limited the product offerings to bus, train and budget hotel bookings so that the app is sharply focused on the needs of this segment.”

    While India is witnessing a massive rise in smartphone user base, connectivity continues to be a serious limitation for easy usage of internet services. Keeping that in mind Yatra.com claims to have designed the Yatra Mini to work well in poor network and use very little data. It comprises of easy to configure components and can be changed/modified without an app release thus further reducing the data usage.

    To make the app user friendly, Yatra Mini offers help to travellers to view their upcoming, completed and cancelled trips .All details of trips will be available like journey date, passenger details, bus operator details, boarding point details, cancellation policy, fare & payment details etc. The app provides flexible cancellation options for bus and train tickets. There are ooptions to resend e-tickets on email and SMS and options to contact the Yatra Helpdesk as well.

    Apart from all the above features, Yatra is launching the app with lucrative loyalty offers like option to use earned eCash on trains and bus bookings.

     For Train Bookings eCash redemption is 10 percent of booking value

     For Bus Bookings eCash redemption is 5 percent of booking value

    Also to enable users to share the app with their friends and motivate them to use the app, Yatra is offering ‘refer and earn’ options wherein users can refer their friends and earn 1000 eCash. The friend being referred will also earn 1500 eCash to use on their bookings.

  • Yatra launches cutting edge technology

    Yatra launches cutting edge technology

    MUMBAI: Yatra.com strengthened their travel booking offering by launching a series of exciting new features. These innovative technological solutions cater to different touch points in their business and further ease the booking process. The features launched – a Facebook chat bot to enable booking tickets, a self serve platform to address customer queries, and a market place chat platform to enable travellers to chat in real time with the sellers – are leading edge technology features that are a first for the Indian travel Industry.

    Yatra.com president Sharat Dhall says, “It has been our constant endeavour to stay in touch with the pulse of the traveller and up-grade our products accordingly. Today we are excited to unveil the chat bot for Facebook Messenger, a first in the Industry and a convenient way for travelers to quickly see travel options and make bookings. Facebook has a wide user base, and this chat option will enable travellers to experience Yatra in a seamless fashion without moving out of Facebook. Also the self serve and market place chat tools help ease the booking process and improve the overall customer experience.”

    Today’s traveller, thanks to the internet, is very well informed and believes in thorough research before deciding on their travel. Facebook is the largest social network and a number of travellers also take advice from friends before making travel plans. In addition, Yatra has a vast reach of almost 1.5 lakh Facebook followers who are looking to make bookings and enquiring about best deals. To leverage this audience, Yatra has launched an intelligent chat bot which helps customers search and book flights directly from their FB messenger. Itis an intuitive platform which helps consumer search in natural language and can handle even complicated queries. Chat bots let users perform tasks within messenger apps that would otherwise be done in a separate app. The company can use these bots to target users on platforms they frequent rather than making them download the company’s app to book.

    Yatra had earlier launched a holidays marketplace, as it enabled a wide range of packages and the best prices as buyers and sellers could directly interact and complete the transaction with no intermediaries. The marketplace chat platform that has just been launched serves as a direct connect between the customer and the re-seller. It has been built with the ability to have text based chats or direct voice calls. Customers can also share attachments via the chat. Discreetness is given due importance with customer privacy being completed maintained.

    Yatra has also introduced a self serve platform that can answer customer queries as it works like an automated FAQ machine, where responses to generic queries are pre-fed. In addition, based on the kind of queries posted by customers, the base of responses can be enhanced making the tool all the more powerful and efficacious.

  • Yatra launches cutting edge technology

    Yatra launches cutting edge technology

    MUMBAI: Yatra.com strengthened their travel booking offering by launching a series of exciting new features. These innovative technological solutions cater to different touch points in their business and further ease the booking process. The features launched – a Facebook chat bot to enable booking tickets, a self serve platform to address customer queries, and a market place chat platform to enable travellers to chat in real time with the sellers – are leading edge technology features that are a first for the Indian travel Industry.

    Yatra.com president Sharat Dhall says, “It has been our constant endeavour to stay in touch with the pulse of the traveller and up-grade our products accordingly. Today we are excited to unveil the chat bot for Facebook Messenger, a first in the Industry and a convenient way for travelers to quickly see travel options and make bookings. Facebook has a wide user base, and this chat option will enable travellers to experience Yatra in a seamless fashion without moving out of Facebook. Also the self serve and market place chat tools help ease the booking process and improve the overall customer experience.”

    Today’s traveller, thanks to the internet, is very well informed and believes in thorough research before deciding on their travel. Facebook is the largest social network and a number of travellers also take advice from friends before making travel plans. In addition, Yatra has a vast reach of almost 1.5 lakh Facebook followers who are looking to make bookings and enquiring about best deals. To leverage this audience, Yatra has launched an intelligent chat bot which helps customers search and book flights directly from their FB messenger. Itis an intuitive platform which helps consumer search in natural language and can handle even complicated queries. Chat bots let users perform tasks within messenger apps that would otherwise be done in a separate app. The company can use these bots to target users on platforms they frequent rather than making them download the company’s app to book.

    Yatra had earlier launched a holidays marketplace, as it enabled a wide range of packages and the best prices as buyers and sellers could directly interact and complete the transaction with no intermediaries. The marketplace chat platform that has just been launched serves as a direct connect between the customer and the re-seller. It has been built with the ability to have text based chats or direct voice calls. Customers can also share attachments via the chat. Discreetness is given due importance with customer privacy being completed maintained.

    Yatra has also introduced a self serve platform that can answer customer queries as it works like an automated FAQ machine, where responses to generic queries are pre-fed. In addition, based on the kind of queries posted by customers, the base of responses can be enhanced making the tool all the more powerful and efficacious.

  • Yatra.com welcomes 2014 with McDonalds

    Yatra.com welcomes 2014 with McDonalds

    MUMBAI: With everyone gearing up for the New Year, brands are leaving no stone unturned to catch customer’s attention. From innovative campaigns to special deals, brands are using various methods to be on everyone’s mind.

     In a bid to keep its travellers happy, Yatra.com is celebrating the New Year by offering discount coupons in association with McDonald. Under this offer, customers making a purchase of Rs 25 and above at any McDonald outlet will receive a complimentary coupon having a unique code. This code can be used to avail discounts on flight booking, hotel or holidays at Yatra.com.

    Yatra.com president  Sharat Dhall said, “This is the time for festivity, cheer and sharing gifts and as we all gear up to welcome 2014, we wish to bring a smile on every face through this unique offer and continue creating happy travellers.”

     “Our cards take the guesswork out of gift-giving because this will offer something for everybody,” said HRPL senior director marketing communications and menu management Rameet Arora.  “Plus, in the spirit of the season, this gift card allows us to thank our customers for their support and add an extra sparkle to their eyes as they take away not just a great meal but happy memories too.”
    The offer starts from 27 December and will continue till January 2014.