To promote its adventure-based reality show Roadies9, MTV's in-house design team created an innovative 70x10 feet hoarding with smoke and light effect, to highlight the theme of the show.
To promote the launch of the ninth season of MTV's adventure-based reality show Roadies9, which went on air on January 7, the channel rolled out a multimedia campaign on January 1, for a period of 15 days, across various mediums which includes television, radio, print, digital, as well as outdoor that played a crucial role.
The outdoor campaign comprised large-sized hoardings placed near the trade areas and youth hangout places across Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata. While the creatives were designed by MTV's in-house team, the campaign was executed by the out of home (OOH) firm Alakh advertising.
The creative of the hoardings consisted of an image of Raghu, the host of the show, holding two guns in both hands. The creative was created in such a manner that it appeared that Raghu is ready to fire at the people walking on the street. The concept behind the creative was to show Raghu in no mood to spare anyone, and was ready to punish those who do not follow traffic rules.
In order to make the hoarding more impactful and authentic, the channel innovated a hoarding of 70x10 feet. While the creative was the same, it appeared that both guns released smoke after being fired. While the smoke effect was created with the help of smoke guns placed behind the guns, LED light was used to cast the impression of the guns being fired. The smoke comes out through a hole made at the front of the gun. The smoke guns were manually operated.
The innovation, which was placed on January 4, was executed in Mumbai at the Mahim Causeway, for a period of 10 days. The 'smoke effect' was created every day for two hours, between 7.30 pm to 9.30 pm.
Moreover, MTV, for its outdoor campaign, used 200-225 BEST buses, which had the Roadies branding either on the side or at the back of the buses. One entire bus was fully branded, based on the Roadies theme.
Aditya Swamy, executive vice-president and channel head, MTV, says, "The theme of our entire marketing campaign is to bring the Roadies experience to life with interactive billboards being a key innovation in our campaign. The impact has been phenomenal. We choose impact over spread every time."