Roadblock advertising

RoadBlock Advertising is going to be back in action soon. It is a powerful means of advertising and brands use it for different purposes.

The word roadblock is derived from the traffic roadblock, where the traffic is jammed on the road and people can’t see anything and get struck at one point. Similarly in Roadblock advertising, brands books advertisement slot for 24 hours  or couple of days and air their advertisements all the time.

There are lot of benefits like when some company wants to launch a new brand, in order to get 100% voice share, ads are aired all the time.  This is predominantly a TV medium but now print media and also online websites are capitalising this. In Nov, 2009 Volkswagen is reportedly paid 100 million rupees to TOI and published its advertisement in all TOI newspapers and in all cities. This was received with both positive and negative response as this was the first time that print media has moved towards to road block advertisement. But in one shot and by paying hefty amount more than 20 million viewers get to see Volkswagen new Jetta and Pasat cars. Since this is not a targeted medium of advertisement, one tend to lose lot of money but it is worthwhile gaining lot of eyeballs.

In a similar campaign in 2009 HUL roadblocked Star network and Zee network for 24 hours so which meant on all 25 network channels of ZEE, viewer will get to see only HUL brands. As the FMCG space is cluttered and fragmented. The move of airing advertisements for HUL brands was thus impactful, as the brands in question will get exposure on as many as 25 channels and 24 hours.

Recently, pizza chain Papa John's ran a roadbloack ad on Facebook promoting a free pizza for every user who became a fan of the brand on its Facebook Page. Thanks to the home page ad and an associated e-mail campaign, Papa John's garnered 131,000 new fans in a single day.

Following are the main features of roadblock advertising     

• 100% share of voice during the campaign period
• Can be booked for a single date, multiple days or for a week
•  Runs multiple ad units
•  Uses Rich media and creative formats are available

Now we will not be surprised if Star roadblocks its entire network to launch its new channel Star Action. Star is largely popular in Youth, Housewives and entertainment oriented audience. In order to get 100% voice share it is expected that Star will roadblock all its network channels, which is in way a good medium to launch new product/ brand .