Adspeak- Roadblocking ..!!!

Signboard outside a prostitute's house:-

"Married MEN not allowed. We serve the needy,not the greedy".

The term "roadblock" is obviously taken from the traffic vocabulary, but in Advertising it means something quite different…... ' it is an aggressive form of media buying where tactically media space is bought in bulk so that on a given day or on a giver duration of time, the TG sees the ad/ communication of the spender in all the similiar media vehicles...'.

In print media it means that space is bought in every news paper for the same day and in television advertising, an ad is shown on multiple stations simultaneously or as near simultaneously as possible.

Media buyers have been greedy like their clients who demand more return and more reach as well as frequency ,defying logic, and hence resort to practices like road blocking,,,,, so a user is confronted with the same ad on numerous channels…a remote wouldn’t be of much help in such a case since it is the same every where… .Online roadblocks ( the one done in web sites) are able to mimic the effects of a TV roadblock in this manner by exposing their ad to massive home page audiences and expanding their reach beyond a single site buy. The ultimate objective, of course, is to obtain 100 percent share of voice.

This is very useful for advertisers who need to promote something significant and timely, like the arrival of a new film in theaters; the series premiere of a popular TV series; a major political, entertainment, or sporting event; or the launch of a new product. For this reason -- along with the ability to show video and employ rich media with a large page footprint, and their sizeable price tag -- roadblock campaigns have been particularly popular among entertainment companies and big-name brands.

The Hutch to Vodafone transmission roadblock in the Star channels was much discussed at that point of time( 2007) and now it is the HUL road block that is happening today across the star network channels…(Star Plus, Star One, Star Gold, Star Utsav, Star Movies, Star World, Channel [v], Star Jalsha, Star Pravah and Star Vijay etc etc )
… Lifebuoy will the lead it seems.. so if you want to see Lifebuoy and Lifebuoy only, keep watching star today….

Impression levels of course goes up as people are forced to see..

Reach (as media planners say) is attained by roadblocking but does the MESSAGE actually REACH( as the ad means it.. reaching the heart,,,,,) the TG?

Clutter is broken and there is no competition so its all yours, even though for just one day… but does the message stay where it REACHed?

In the internet world it happens more often and more smartly….Recently, pizza chain Papa John's ran a roadblock 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. As of March, it was the second fastest-growing brand on Facebook after Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps. But it is not easy in the still old TV and print world…

The big question is…..

Isn’t the strategy leaving a somewhat objectionable impression of "blocking" consumers choice to see what they want?…

Isn’t it forceful showing ? Isn’t it that they may get bored and stop buying…?

“I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death” said the legend Leo Burnett… the advertising world of Media planners, buyers and strategizing isn’t bothered about the reach as the creative means it..

And there lies the problem…
Amen !