Intercity bus travel in Malaysia has long been defined by the 11th hour. Tickets are frequently purchased at the last minute, often at physical counters, with the decision driven by timing and fare.
When online bus ticketing platform RedBus entered the market in 2015, this behaviour influenced their growth play. A decade later, Malaysia has become RedBus’ largest market outside India by both users and revenue.
The platform engages 200 bus operators for 6,000+ routes, that serves 3.5 million passengers in the market. About 24,000 travellers book seats via the platform daily and that's an impressive 37% of the market share.
Yet the same utility that drove adoption also capped the brand’s growth. In a price-sensitive category where the norm is to purchase tickets at the last minute, RedBus was being widely used but narrowly perceived as a transactional booking tool. The campaign below aimed to break that strategic ceiling and allow RedBus to have an influence on travel decisions.
Objective
RedBus wanted to do three things - increase salience beyond price and convenience, grow organic app installs during quieter travel periods, and create a repeatable brand platform rather than a one-off campaign.
“When Malaysians think about travelling, RedBus should come to mind earlier and more naturally,” Pallavi Chopra, chief marketing officer at RedBus, India and Southeast Asia, told Campaign Asia-Pacific.
A 2025 report by the Department of Statistics Malaysia highlights that travel is increasingly planned around food, a majority (97.6%) of trips are made by land transport. Beyond Penang or Ipoh, people travel for char kway teow, white coffee and specific local dishes. RedBus’ market research also showed Malaysians spend at least twice as much on food as other consumers in the region. From this context stemmed the idea that growth alone won't come from talking about bus ticket prices; the brand had to attach itself to a strong travel trigger.
“In mature, price-sensitive categories, growth does not come from amplifying product features alone; it comes from entering spaces that consumers already care about deeply. RedBus designed a campaign to embed the brand into a culturally relevant space and to be associated with travel experiences,” said Chopra.
Strategy and execution
The campaign adapted an earlier RedBus initiative in India, Route to 47, which used Google Maps’ to connect destinations to moments in India’s independence story.
In Malaysia, RedBus applied the same logic to food and created an interactive platform, Food Map, on Google Maps’ My Maps feature. They pinned food destinations across the country and linked each one to corresponding RedBus routes. Launched in July 2025, Food Map initially featured more than 160 food locations across over 40 cities, including major corridors such as Kuala Lumpur-Penang and Kuala Lumpur-Ipoh. New locations are added over time, so it's like a live resource rather than a static list.
The mechanic was to enable users to browse destinations through food, identify where they wanted to go, and move directly to bus options.
“When the discovery happens in the same interface where you check directions every day, the brand becomes part of the planning behaviour and that meant we are no longer just a booking engine,” said Chopra.
To cut through Malaysia’s saturated food content landscape, RedBus launched the campaign with an in-person panel, instead of a standard press conference. The launch event featured food creators and entrepreneurs such as Chin Ren Yi (co-founder, myBurgerLab) and Hadi Salleh (food content creator).
In addition, RedBus collaborated with over 170 TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube food creators to promote new destinations that were added to the map. The social posts saw creators share their own must-visit food destinations, use the map to identify the corresponding bus routes, and document the full journey, from inspiration to trip planning.
Chopra said about the social strategy: “The map had to keep growing so the conversation could keep growing. We did not want a spike in week one and silence in week three.”
Challenges
In Malaysia, booking spikes are typically concentrated around Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, and year-end holidays, so the campaign was scheduled outside peak festive periods.
But a challenge was whether the platform could create brand pull without a festive travel trigger. To manage this, RedBus focused on awareness and cultural storytelling rather than direct conversion messaging. “In the e-commerce and app world, app installs, brand queries, and new-user acquisition are key,” said Chopra “Food Map exceeded expectations on those, which are the real proof of impact.”
The second challenge was pre-existing clutter in this category. Food is one of Malaysia’s most saturated content categories, with strong incumbent voices across creator, media and community channels. A branded map risked becoming just another promotional list.
“We addressed this by positioning Food Map as a national cultural initiative rather than a promotional campaign,” said Chopra. "A key learning from this initiative is that brand building extends far beyond traditional 20-second formats. We took a risk in launching a softer category-builder concept through a social-media-first strategy rather than focusing on traditional media. This resonated strongly with Gen Z and also lifted the overall brand metrics,” Chopra said.
Results
By the end of its six-month run in December 2025, Food Map delivered a 15% uplift in organic app installs across Andriod and iOS and 10% overall brand growth. Daily search interest for 'RedBus' and 'Food Map' rose 13X, indicating that the brand was being considered before the booking stage.
The platform also drew participation beyond paid or owned media. More than 550 Malaysians submitted their own recommendations and helped expand the map to 210 locations by the end of the campaign. Earned visibility generated more than 50 pieces of coverage across outlets including Berita Harian, Utusan Malaysia and Bernama. RedBus estimates the coverage delivered MYR1 million in PR value, while creator amplification contributed a further $257,000 in social value.
“When branded search moves, it means the decision has already been made in the consumer’s head,” Chopra said. “That is the shift from performance to salience.”
The more important outcome was strategic. Earlier RedBus work, including 'Chup Tempat Dengan RedBus', focused on capturing demand at the booking stage but with the Food Map, they've moved the brand upstream into cultural moments that create demand in the first place.
As Chopra put it, “Travellers trust authentic stories more than polished ads today,” said Chopra, adding: “The campaign didn’t just sell journeys; it sold connection, pride and curiosity."
Source: Campaign Asia-Pacific
