SHANGHAI --Cutting through the clutter of Shanghai's frantic media market is one of the biggest challenges for advertisers in China, prompting local companies to constantly seek out new places to put ads. Focus Media, for instance, has a network of flat screen monitors in building lobbies, elevators and retail outlets, and Seven Media's 30 x 8 meter video screen floats up and down the city's Huang Pu River.
Now, Shanghai-based Hudson Advertising Co. has come up with another first for China's most sophisticated consumer market, a truck with a five sq. meter plasma screen on each side that airs TV spots, including audio, visible to other vehicles as well as pedestrians.
The truck, fitted with $130,000 worth of audio-visual equipment, crawls through Shanghai's upscale Nanjing Xi Lu Road between Huashan and Jiangning streets from 8am to 11pm, according to Hudson spokesman Cao Chen. Airtime costs $3,620 for a 5" spot that is in the rotation for one week, rising to $8,791 for 15" ads and $12,669 for 30" spots. Advertisers running ads on the truck include the Chinese e-commerce portal Alibaba, Nestle, Reckitt Benckiser Corp. for its Dettol antiseptic brand, Allianz insurance company and South Korea's Orion Confectionery Co.
"We think it's an innovative way to broadcast," said Ma Yun, regional marketing manager for Nestle's Fuller Food ice cream division in Shanghai. "You have to find a very good way to reach people. Nanjing Xi Lu is a very good location because there are so many people going there for fashion trends and premium brands. [Those are] the target consumers we want to reach."
The company launched the truck in Shanghai in February but is looking for venture capital to add mobile LED trucks on the streets in three Chinese cities with rising disposable income, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Shenzhen.
--by Bill Marcus in Shanghai