Yatra of a new kind: When CAs met MSMEs as part of bus campaign

It’s now the turn of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to leverage the power of OOH. In a unique out-of-home campaign called the ‘MSME Yatra’, a bus by ICAI travelled to 75 cities across the country in 75 days, covering more than 14,000 km. It entered a new city every day, fetched MSME entrepreneurs in that city to a designated meeting place with the Chartered Accountants in that city.

The objective behind the ‘MSME Yatra’ by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) was to equip the MSMEs with the necessary know-how and create awareness to achieve a level of standardisation in their processes. The MSMEs were made aware of government schemes and policies, regulatory compliances, subsidies, effective funding access, Udyam Registrations etc.

The project was conceptualised by ICAI, while Mindwave Media was involved with its Designing, Branding and Execution. The MSME yatra was supported by the State Bank of India (SBI), Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC).

The campaign was successful with more than 10,000 MSME meetings conducted with the Chartered Accountants, says Mindwave Media.

The bus, which was flagged off by the Union Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Minister Narayan Rane in Mumbai on August 18, 2022, culminated its journey on November 18 at the prestigious World Congress of Accountants (WCOA), hosted by ICAI at the famed Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. Also the bus, with the achievements of the ICAI MSME Yatra, was well displayed from November 18-21 at the mega exhibition of WCOA, attended by more than 6,000 delegates from 105 countries.

The bus initially covered the Western Region of the country, followed by the North, Central, East, South and finally passing the Konkan belt before completing the Yatra in Mumbai.

“Bus Campaigns are very effective when you have to do one-on-one meetings with your  target groups who are spread across the country in rural and tier 2 and 3 towns. Such campaigns could be replicated to sectors including Fintech, Banking, Insurance, Agro marketing, education, and spreading key rural concepts,” said Rajesh Radhakrishnan, Founder-Chief Marketing Officer, Mindwave Media. Mindwave media is the media arm of leading innovative marketing solutions company Vritti Solutions.