An experimental investigation of advertising effectiveness in roadblock advertising

Abstract

Recent years have seen growing use of ‗Roadblock Advertising‘ by media planners to enhance advertising effectiveness. Many companies (Hutch, Aircel, ITC, Viacom 18, Nestle, Nokia, Volkswagon, Real fire extinguisher, Vodafone, Wagh Bakri) have invested in Roadblock advertising in the recent past. Roadblock advertising is characterized by blocking of particular media vehicle(s) for the airtime or advertising space by a single advertiser for a certain period of time. The objective of Roadblock advertising is to break the clutter of advertisements in order to be heard, read or watched exclusively by viewers. While Roadblock advertising is perceived as effective by many practitioners, from the audience‘ point of view Roadblock advertising might be upsetting their viewing experience, and this annoyance might be affecting their attitude towards the advertisement. This makes the phenomenon of Roadblock advertising worth investigating for the benefit of managers and advertisers, as they are committing hefty budgets (Appendix G). The purpose of this research is to understand how Roadblock advertising differs from the non-Roadblock or usual advertising repetition formats in its impact which will help managers to better invest the advertising budget. There is a scarcity of literature on the impact of ―Roadblock Advertising‖ on brand recall and attitude of viewers as a result of such advertising campaigns. This research proposes to address this gap. Specifically, two essays are proposed to explore the effectiveness of Roadblock advertising campaigns and effectiveness of such campaigns for familiar and new brands. The literature for this study has been developed from the existing body of literature in the area of advertising, psychology, learning, and neuroscience. For the development of hypotheses, the theories have been borrowed from advertising and psychology literature. The findings of this research are expected to bring new insight into both theory and the managerial practice for effective Roadblock advertising.