2012 roadblock

The philosophy behind 2012‘s latest marketing campaign? If people don’t want to watch your movie, MAKE THEM.

In order to create any sort of buzz for the film besides “Oh, so Roland Emmerich’s destroying the world again?” Sony is planning what is unironically called a “roadblock” ad campaign, where a two minute clip of 2012 will play on 450 TV outlets across North America at the same time, forcing 90% of ALL people watching TV during that period to witness the footage.

So just how many eyeballs is that? Well during the 10:50 to 11 pm timeslot this is airing, it’s around 110 million, but with internet and cell phone streams, could push the audience 140 million. This isn’t unheard of for a film, but usually it’s done with say, a Universal movie that will “roadblock” NBC and all other NBC owned stations. A campaign this massive has never been seen before, and I can’t even begin to imagine how much something like this probably costs.

I can see a future day where there’s an “internet roadblock” where a giant, unskippable popup ad blankets every major website from Google to Twitter to Pornhub forcing you to pay attention to two minutes PIRATES OF THE CARRIBBEAN 7: THE GHOST OF JACK SPARROW long after interest has died off.

The roadblock hits Oct. 1st, while 2012 smashes into theaters Nov. 13th.