In 2007, Vodafone splashed its ads all over the Star Network in what was the first attempt in India at ‘roadblock advertising’. The brand’s change of name — from Hutch to Vodafone — was advertised throughout a given day by all Star channels, blocking out every other brand.

For a while, nothing more happened by way of exclusive advertising. Then, in July this year, Airtel came out with a first-of-its-kind deal with RK Cineplex — a ‘branded’ mall in Hyderabad. It guaranteed exclusive advertising and naming rights to Airtel for two years. The deal disallowed other products from any static branding in between. More followed.

In August 2009, Cadbury’s Dairy Milk purchased three days on MTV. And on 16 September, Hindustan Unilever (HUL) took a day of exclusive advertising all over the Star Network, following it up with blanket advertising on the Zee Network later in the month. Now there is unconfirmed talk of Nokia and ITC’s Bingo storming the festive season with similar deals.

Heady though all of this is, exclusive advertising is as yet a poorly understood marketing initiative in India, not least because consumers are not acquainted with its subtleties. Few companies know whether its high cost has been, or can be, translated into the visibility they desire to have.

“The idea behind the Vodafone campaign was to announce to a wide audience that Hutch was becoming Vodafone, and to carry forward the goodwill of Hutch to Vodafone. That was successful,” says Kumar Subramaniam, executive brand director at advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, which created the campaign. On the campaign’s commercial viability, he says that “it depends on what the requirement is and what the evaluation parameters are. If one of the objectives is to quickly ramp up awareness of a brand or a new proposition, it works very well. But it should be viewed as a one-off device.”

Typically, exclusivity comes at a hefty price. With 10 minutes of commercial time for every hour of broadcast, HUL used about 40 hours of advertising time, and telecast 4,000 advertising spots on a single day with its Star deal. A 10-second spot on prime time television costs Rs 6,000-10,000, depending on the show and the time of day. Rough estimates place HUL’s ad-spends at about Rs 1,000 crore. The premium cost for such a strategy was high, and sources say it amounted to about 100 per cent. That said, with the Star deal, HUL is expected to have reached more than 100 million viewers in India.

Now, the million-rupee question: is exclusive advertising worth its cost? Opinion is divided. “The impact of such advertising is huge, but it comes at a high premium,” says Harsha Joshi, CEO, media buying and content, at Madison Media House. “It is an added ‘opportunity cost’ that companies pay for when it comes to roadblock advertising. Innovative concepts help create a buzz, and exclusive space does just that. Especially with the festive season on, such strategies are working in favour of the firms.”

However, “the Indian consumer is not yet subtle enough to realise this is branding”, says Suhel Seth, managing partner at Counselage. “Abroad, Citi has done a similar job with the Yankees Stadium in New York, but that will get them huge on-air space and on-ground publicity, something that a multiplex will not.”