You enter the theater 15 minutes early to find the perfect seat, settle in with a bucket of popcorn and now what? You've just become part of a very captive audience and a great opportunity for your advertising media plan. When the moviegoer walks into the theater, they are receptive, responsive, happy and usually very excited about what they are about to experience.
This is an ideal setting for a brand's video content because there is an attentive audience made up of consumers who are not cooking dinner, reaching for the remote to change channels, running to another room or any of a number of other distractions that might exist when a brand is delivering video advertising in the home.
Placing an ad in the cinema gives you exposure in the lobby as well as the theater during the pre-shows. In the pre-show, the ad is played between three or four previews for other movies on the absolute best audio/video technology and equipment, giving your advertisement the ultimate sound on a wall-to-wall screen that no other environment can create. Better yet, the ad cannot be skipped or muted. In addition, while moviegoers are getting their popcorn and drinks, the ad is played on smaller screens in the high-trafficked lobby areas.
Should cinema replace other forms of video advertising? No. The big screen doesn’t deliver the reach of TV or the interaction and tracking of online video. But utilizing cinema as part of a multi-platform advertising media plan can go a long way in reaching consumers in a meaningful way and driving higher ad recall.
There are many attractive aspects of cinema advertising that can benefit marketers. Recent press on cinema is predicting it to grow from $881 million in 2017 to $965 million in 2021, a growth rate of 2.4%. Along with digital, it is an advertising medium that has not been declining over the years like so many others have. And although the movies are attractive to all ages, their biggest market is the coveted Millennial (18-34) audience. Additionally, cinema advertising can be geotargeted by DMA, zip code or all the way down to the theater level.
Summer is typically cinema’s highest attendance timeframe followed by the Thanksgiving-Christmas holiday seasons. April-May is when the superhero blockbusters debut to help kick this off. This year is no different, as the movie industry is referring to the next few months as ‘The Return of EPIC Franchises,’ with one being released each week:
4/27 Avengers: Infinity War - Holds the top two spots for largest May openings ever
5/18 Deadpool 2 - Biggest February opening of all time
5/25 SOLO: A Star Wars Story - #2 grossing franchise of all time
6/8 Ocean’s 8 - First all-female cast for the franchise
6/15 The Incredibles 2 - #1 Pixar holiday release of all time
6/22 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Largest June opening of all time
Also coming soon to a theater near you are new touchpoints to increase the value of cinema advertising. National CineMedia (NCM) is releasing products such as Cinema Accelerator and Noovie ARcade. The accelerators will allow advertisers to target moviegoers by reaching them digitally before and after their movie experience using geo-location services, beacons and transactional data from the theaters. Noovie ARcade is an augmented reality app that the audience can download and play games during the pre-show. All of this makes cinema a great option to consider when looking for a medium to deliver video content to a highly receptive audience.
To learn more about how to curate an advertising media plan that fits your brand, contact The Ward Group today.