In redBus’ festive campaign, Allu Arjun rescues those caught in dilemma of duties & dream

redBus has launched its first digital-first brand campaign, with brand ambassador actor Allu Arjun, ahead of the festive season. The objective of the campaign is to presenting itself at the heart of intercity bus travel, amid the upcoming festive occasions and holidays.

As part of the campaign, the online bus ticketing platform, has rolled out two ad-films with Allu in the lead and delivering the message of ‘bringing your loved ones and dreams closer with redBus’.

For the campaign, redBus undertook extensive research across 15 cities, reaching out to hundreds of people from different walks of life to identify the emotional and cultural anchors that it needed to create the theme for the campaign. Two aspects stood out, they were- ‘India dreams big’- people are ambitious, with a zeal to make it big in life and ‘Family comes first’- commitment towards family ranks high in priority. This creates a dilemma among many, having to choose either ‘ambitious goals’ or staying connected to loved ones and redBus saw here a clear opportunity to resolve the conflict and ease the tension by positioning itself as an enabler, allowing people to follow their dreams as well as perform their family duties, but not at the cost of one another. With this emerged the campaign tagline- ‘redBus: Apno ko, sapno ko kareeb laye’," the company said.

redBus has launched two 45-second ad films and 30-second edits of the same, starring its brand ambassador, Icon Star Allu Arjun and directed by Trivikram Srinivas, one of the leading film directors in south India. The films depict slice-of-life situations of a logistics manager at a storage facility and a mother-daughter duo running a small eatery. 

The first film depicts a helpless father who misses out on the joys of being a part of his infant child’s formative months. As he dreads the prospect of chasing a bus to get home, even to see his child take the first steps, a red bus arrives on the scene and pulls up to drop off a very special passenger. The father is awestruck as Allu Arjun alights from the bus and treads a red carpet towards him with a swagger befitting the actor. Allu comforts the anguished father in a breeze with his cinematic charisma, as he speaks of the benefits of booking a bus ticket on redBus, which could help improve the time the man spends with his family. In a similar construct, the second film comprises a mother-daughter duo managing a small eatery. The hardworking daughter is also very talented, making her mother proud who now wishes to see her enroll at a college in the city for higher studies. The daughter is apprehensive as her mother would have to manage the weekend rush at the eatery all alone while she spent valuable time in queues for obtaining a bus ticket for the trip. The same red bus arrives here too with the swashbuckling Allu Arjun strolling up to the two to defuse their tension, by asserting a list of benefits that come along with booking a bus ticket on redBus. Allu finishes both the films with a powerful tone, exclaiming- ‘redBus: Apno ko, sapno ko, kareeb laye’

The narrative of the films thus implies redBus’ strong bond with its customers, by being culturally relevant to Bharat as well as having a strong connect with individual emotions and aspirations, with extremely relatable storytelling.