Out-of-home · Bus wraps · Billboards · Bus shelters
Oye! Tera dhyaan kidhar hai?
A Diwali brand-awareness campaign for Square Yards, India's largest real estate platform. I designed the bus wraps, bus shelters and billboards running across Delhi NCR, Bengaluru and Mumbai–Pune. The job was to be impossible to miss on the street.
Brief
Make Square Yards the brand people see on the way to work, all Diwali season.
Pure brand awareness. No single offer to sell, so the work had one job: get noticed on the street, again and again, and leave squareyards.com behind every time.
Opens with the festive season, so the yellow buses are familiar before house-hunting starts.
Runs through Diwali week, when families talk about buying a home the most.
Holds visibility into year-end, when Diwali decisions turn into site visits.
Three months at about 1 million impressions a day comes to roughly 90 million impressions.
System
One yellow. One black. One diagonal. Every sighting adds to the last.
Own a colour the street doesn't use
City buses are red, green, blue or white. A solid brand-yellow bus stands out in traffic before anyone reads a word. Black on this yellow is about 15:1 contrast, readable in midday glare and under streetlights.
A diagonal that moves forward
The black-to-yellow split runs back to front, the way the bus travels. Even parked, the wrap looks like it's going somewhere, and it pulls the eye from headline to logo.
The language of the street
Hinglish headlines, six words or fewer, in heavy type. People recognise a phrase they'd say themselves faster than they read a sentence, even from a moving auto.
Pen-and-ink with halftone
Bold outlines read from a distance. Fine detail pays off up close at a shelter. One colour, so the yellow-and-black look holds on every format.
The logo where eyes stop
On buses, the logo sits mid-panel at standing eye level, next to the door people walk towards. On shelters and billboards it's always top-left, where the eye lands first.
A clear next step
Every piece ends on squareyards.com in a highlight box. Buses add the app screen, store badges and a "Scan to start" QR code on the rear.
Bus wraps
Each side of the bus has a different audience, so each side has its own job.
The big headline
Pedestrians and people at stops are the closest viewers. This side gets the headline at full size, across the band between the window rows.
The name and the claim
Overtaking cars see this side for a second or two. It carries only "India's largest real estate platform" and squareyards.com.
Something to act on
Drivers stuck behind a bus look at its back for minutes. That's where the app screen, store badges and the QR code go.
How the artwork is built
- Copy runs in the solid band between window rows, so glass never breaks it up.
- The illustration sits on the solid rear panel, never cut by a door.
- Logo and app panel sit between the wheel arches, the flattest and most visible part of the body.
- The top strip carries the brand line for upper-deck height and flyovers.
Same bus, two more headlines
Two of the billboard lines were also built as full double-decker wraps. The diagonal, logo panel, app screen, front and rear stay fixed. Only the headline, the illustration and the side copy change, so each bus reads as a new joke from the same brand.
Get a room… or even better… Own your home
The couple on the park bench sits on the solid rear panel, so no door cuts through them. The driver's side drops the joke and carries the promise instead: "From search to keys, we got you covered."
Your place or mine? Make it ours
The open door and two pairs of shoes stand at the rear edge, right where the bus ends, as if you could walk in. The driver's side turns the line into an action: "Start owning today with squareyards.com."
The ends never change
The front carries the logo, the LED route screen and the brand claim for oncoming traffic. The rear goes full yellow with a large logo and squareyards.com for the queue behind. Keeping both fixed means every variant is recognised from either end before the headline is read.
Single-deckers: aimed at commuters
Single-deckers run the office routes, so the top strip reads "Find homes close to your workplace with squareyards.com", for people who spend an hour on that bus every day. Same yellow, black and diagonal, so it reads as one campaign.
Billboards
Six headlines for billboards and bus shelters. Same layout, so people learn where to look.
Oye! Tera dhyaan kidhar hai?
"Hey! Where's your attention?" · "The cheapest home is right here."
- How it gets attention
- It talks straight to the person walking past. The woman with binoculars looks right back, and eye contact makes people stop.
- What it leaves behind
- Price. "Buy homes that fit your budget."
Your place or mine?
Answer: "Make it ours."
- How it gets attention
- A flirty line everyone knows, with a twist. Two pairs of shoes at an open door tell the story before the words do.
- What it leaves behind
- A first home together. "Start owning today."
Get a room…
"…or even better… Own your home."
- How it gets attention
- Opens on the cheeky jibe aimed at couples on park benches. The turn from renting a room to owning a home is the surprise.
- What it leaves behind
- The whole journey. "From search to keys, we got you covered."
AI can answer everything!
"…but still can't answer 'Beta, ghar kab loge?'" ("When are you buying a house?")
- How it gets attention
- Mixes the topic everyone's discussing with the question every young earner hears from relatives at Diwali. The shocked robot lands the joke first.
- What it leaves behind
- "For the questions that really matter, visit squareyards.com."
Chidiya chug gayi khet?
From the proverb about regret after a chance is gone. "Take a break from regret…"
- How it gets attention
- Every Hindi speaker knows the proverb, so it reads almost instantly. A bird in sunglasses with a trident makes the old saying feel new.
- What it leaves behind
- "Make data-backed property decisions."
Theka kitni door hai?
"How far is the liquor shop?" The milestone answers: 0 KM.
- How it gets attention
- The cheeky question people ask about a new area, answered by a highway milestone every Indian recognises. Made to be photographed and shared.
- What it leaves behind
- "Find homes that fulfil all your needs."
Each line, placed where it lands best
Every headline is matched to a road and an audience. The AI joke sits by Bengaluru's tech parks. The theka line stands next to a highway milestone, and the couples lines face commuter traffic in Gurgaon and Mumbai.
Roadside scenes are AI-generated backgrounds, with the final artwork placed in perspective.
Distance test
Does it still read from across the road? Step back and see.
At city traffic speed, that's how long a passer-by has. The headline and logo should hold up after the fine detail blurs out.
On the road
Checked against real traffic, trees and shop signs before going to print.
Street photos are design mockups.
Process
Six months from first sketch to street, signed off by every team that touched it.
- ExploreBuilt the yellow, black and diagonal system and tested it on single-deckers, double-deckers, shelters and billboards side by side.
- PresentTook the strongest routes to the client as complete wraps for every side of the bus, with street mockups.
- RefineWent through review rounds. Some directions were rejected; the ones that survived were sharpened into the final wraps.
- ApproveSigned off by copywriting, design, the creators and the marketing head before print.
The file also includes a Kannada version of "Real Estate Made Real Easy" for Bengaluru, so the brand line speaks the local language where it matters.
Impact
Seen often, recognised instantly, remembered by name.
A billboard waits for people. A bus carries the message down the whole route and back, many times a day.
Same colour, diagonal and layout everywhere. A bus in the morning and a shelter at night register as one brand.
Every piece ends on squareyards.com. When people start looking, the brand they saw all season is the one they type.
~1 million glances a day. Every one of them ends on squareyards.com.