Panel SA: Discount on tickets to encourage voting trips increased demand, says road company

The marketplace for selling road tickets ClickBus, which promoted on election weekends with a message to encourage the vote of those outside their voting city, reports a 57% growth in demand for tickets compared to the second round of 2018 presidential race.

Called Ida e Vota, the ticket price discount campaign on the voting dates had 5 destinations in the Northeast among the 10 most searched, according to Phillip Klien, CEO of ClickBus. The list includes Salvador, Alagoinhas, Feira de Santana and Cruz das Almas, in Bahia, as well as Fortaleza (CE).

The company gave a bonus in the price of the ticket with the aim of encouraging the traveler to go to the electoral domicile to vote. What was the result for the business in the 1st round? This campaign was focused only on the 1st round, and we ended up extending it to the 2nd round as well. It was an evolution of another campaign we did in the 2020 municipal elections. We can already compare it with the 2020 action and see trends between this year’s two rounds.

We have an absurdly higher demand. We have seen an increase in the use of coupons [de bônus] in this year’s action. In 2020, there were other macro situations, such as Covid, that can influence. But we see other signs that point to greater adherence.

Looking at the demand for tickets, this year we have a 12% increase in sales compared to the first year of the campaign.

Analyzing general data on demand for road tickets in the second round, the sector showed a growth of 57%, compared to the second round of the 2018 presidential elections.

It is a correlation, we cannot have the cause, but we observe that people are traveling more by bus to vote.

What could be the possible reasons for this growth?We’ll still look into the data after the 2nd round, but what we’ve already seen of interest are the destinations. Among the top destinations for people who are applying the voucher in 2022, we see that 5 of the top 10 destinations are in the Northeast region. The highest use was recorded in Salvador, Bahia.

It is difficult to know the direct correlation, but when we do other types of campaigns with other themes, there is a much greater representation of the Southeast or other regions that have more use of the road modal. But in this case, what is surprising us is that half of the biggest uses are in cities in the Northeast.

Mr. Are you following this free pass movement on public transport to try to reduce abstention? Did you get any inspiration from that?In the discussion about redoing the campaign now in 2022, we defend democracy and want to emphasize and encourage civic duty. Our goal is to encourage people to do their civic duty and vote.

But we also look at the changes derived from the pandemic, with people moving around, changing address, living a little further away from work. And we wanted to make it easier for those people who are living somewhere else and haven’t had time to update the title, for example.

We know that Brazilians are increasingly aware of their voting power. For us, being able to encourage and enable this moment, which will be transformative for Brazil regardless of the result, makes us happy. But the inspiration came from internal data and past experiences from campaigns we’ve done before.

In the 1st round, the degree of abstention was high. Did this decision to repeat the promotion in the second round consider this?In fact, the driver was much more growth compared to the previous campaign. It was the growth in adhesion to this campaign, compared to other promotional campaigns that we do here as well. We look at the internal data and we understand that there is an adhesion.

We also noticed that people are talking about it and praising it.

Were you afraid of the company being called PT and being boycotted, since abstention is a greater concern among voters with low income and schooling, groups that give more support to Lula?We defend democracy. Our goal is to foster civic duty. Every citizen has the freedom to express their thoughts. And again, the main reasons that drive our campaigns are internal data.

Have you not received any reports along these lines?We had no impact on this campaign with this bias. I think even because of our positioning and the fact that we have done this twice before. It’s nothing new what we’re doing here. It is a continuation of a campaign. On social media, we receive praise for our actions.

Some states have determined free intercity buses. Does this have any impact on your promotion?Not. All the coupons that we have made available have sold out. As for the determinations, ClickBus, as an intermediary for the sale of tickets, is following the case with our partner vehicles, which operate the lines determined by them.

X-ray

Graduated in marketing and finance from Tulane University, in the United States, the executive was one of the founders of the company Predicta at the beginning of his career and passed through companies such as Twitter, Uber, OLX and PicPay, before taking on the position of CEO of ClickBus. He is a board member of the logistics company Sotran.