redBus proudly presents MS Dhoni as its official brand ambassador

The former Indian cricket team skipper aka Captain Cool will be the new face of the brand, present across all major consumer campaigns 

Bangalore, April 15, 2019: redBus, the world’s largest bus ticketing platform, announces Indian cricket icon, MS Dhoni, as its brand ambassador. Dhoni will helm all major campaigns for the brand, across media platforms and will soon appear in his first promotional concept for the brand.

While redBus commands a strong foothold in the Indian online bus ticketing segment, it is looking at strengthening its relationship with its patrons, while also reaching out to a large group of potential customers. The company has found in Dhoni, one of the most popular sportsmen, the perfect personality, to engage with a national audience.

Dhoni’s humble start, his arduous journey and subsequent accomplishments lends to his legendary status and winning the admiration and reverence of millions of people across the country. redBus too, shares a similar biography, by its humble beginnings in creating the digital path that connects passengers and bus operators leading to a better experience of bus travel. From its first association with a single bus operator in 2006 to the over 2500 bus operators today, redBus has come a long way, serving over 20 million travellers and propelling itself to being the largest and most trusted bus ticketing platform in the country. Through the personality of Dhoni, that exemplifies its journey, redbus aims to create and enhance a unique engagement among customers with its new campaign.

Arun Pandey, Chairman and Managing Director of Rhiti Group, which manages Dhoni’s commercial engagements, said, “The Brand redBus promises to bring transformation of lives and aspirations in smaller cities and towns of India. MS. Dhoni and redBus, both have a common obsession to strive and make a difference. We look forward to the Dhoni-redBus association taking the story of the transformation of bus booking and travel experience to the national audience.”

The cricketing legend is set to be witnessed in a new, never seen before avatar of a hockey player in his first cameo for the brand, slated to be launched soon. redBus will reach out to its audience across the country through various media channels, both online and offline, and is investing heavily in marketing promotions, in line with its ambitious growth targets.

Speaking on the association, Prakash Sangam, CEO, redBus, said, “We are happy to embark on this collaborative journey with MS Dhoni. Together we will continue to strengthen the redBus brand and enhance our presence across the country. Dhoni is the epitome of a King in his domain and a go-getter, a kindred spirit that connects well with redBus values. At redBus, we believe in empowering bus operators and passengers through our technology solutions and enhancing the bus travel experience. We believe in building strong relationships and we look forward to a fantastic partnership with Dhoni.”

“I am extremely delighted to associate with redBus, which is making a huge difference to the way people book their bus tickets to travel. It reminds me of my early days when I travelled distances for cricket, undergoing the hassles of a last-minute rush, unavailability of seats and without any option to choose seats. Looking back, I wish I had redBus as an option” - Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Indian cricketer

About redBus

redBus was founded in 2006 in India and today is the world’s largest online bus ticketing platform. After having solved complex problems of bus customers in India, redBus also launched operations in Singapore and Malaysia in 2015 and acquired a majority stake in Peru based bus ticketing platform Busportal (now redBus.Pe) in the subsequent year. With this acquisition, redBus successfully launched operations in Latin America markets, Peru & shortly thereafter, Colombia. 

redBus has globally sold more than 180 million bus tickets till date and has a customer base of around 20 million users. redBus is now part of the MakeMyTrip group (Nasdaq, MMYT) which is the largest travel aggregator in India with offerings across categories such as Flights, Hotels, Holiday Packages, etc.

The business owns the following products - redBus™, redPro Win™, YourBus™ and, Seat Seller™, which come together to serve and address the fragmented bus industry across geographies. 

·   redBus™ is the popular consumer-facing travel brand enabling customers to buy bus tickets online. Consumers, depending on where they live, can access redBus on the web (redbus.in, redbus.my, redbus.sg, redbus.id, redbus.pe and redbus.co).  They can also download the highly rated redBus mobile app from Google Play Store and Apple App Store. We enable a customer to search for bus services on a route of his/her choice, reserve a seat and make a payment to confirm the booking, thus bringing the seller and buyer on a single platform to facilitate easy bus booking.

·   redProWin™ is a cloud-based solution built for bus operators. Approximately 2500+ bus operators in India, SEA and Latin America use this platform for their day to day operations. Through the use of engineering & data analytics, redPro Win offers features such as Pricing and Occupancy Analytics, Analytics around Customer Ratings and Reviews of bus services, and a Promotions and Pricing platform to improve Yield. These solution help bus operators improve operational efficiency as well as service quality.

·   YourBus™ is a real time location tracking platform for buses. It helps bus operators with understanding Deleys through Punctuality reports and also monitor Driver performance through over speeding, Route Deviation and Unscheduled Halts reports. The real time bus tracking helps redBus with equipping passengers on the bus with real time location updates and sharing the location information with friends and family for enhanced safety.

·   Seat Seller™ is a GDS for bus inventory distribution and is used by more than 20,000 retail agents and 200+ OTAs to sell bus tickets to their customers.