Cinema Advertising Growth Spurred by Ad Attentiveness and 'Event' Focus

Originally published on November 6, 2007

Ad attentiveness, live baseball and opera, entertaining pre-movie shows, and new sponsor categories are driving the growth of cinema advertising, which JackMyers.com projects will grow 15% in 2007 and 17.5% in 2008. "When it comes to advertisers adapting to the growing importance of non-traditional media, cinema stands out as the best option," says Screenvision president Matt Kearneywho has an obvious bias. But his opinion is now supported by new Myers Emotional Connections™ researchon audiences' attentiveness to advertising messages that ranks pre-movie video entertainment first among adults 18 to 24 and third among adults 18 to 49 for audience attentiveness to advertising compared to 63 English language media types spanning print, television, radio, online and non-traditional media. (See www.JackMyers.com for the full methodology and details of the Myers Emotional Connections Study conducted among 8,000 Americans.)

· For "I am likely to pay attention to commercials," fifty percent of 18 to 24 year old respondents to the Myers survey rate 'pre-movie video entertainment in movie theaters' 5, 6 or 7 on a seven point scale. *

· Forty-six percent positively rate their attentiveness to 'pre-movie slide presentations' and 44% positively rate their attentiveness to 'movie theater lobby kiosks, posters, etc.' *

· Forty percent are attentive to advertising at 'websites they visit for TV and movie related information.' *

Among adults, the only medium that outperforms cinema advertising among adults 18 to 49 are daily and weekly newspapers. (Spanish language media perform positively as well.)

Chris Moseley, SVP Marketing for The History Channel, which is a major cinema advertiser along with sister network A&E, explains "with all the competition to get on consumers' radar screen, the cinema opportunity 'eventizes' whatever you're doing. Cinema has been able to make movies an event that people want to be part of. Cinema advertising elevate our shows to event status." A&E and History Channel will announce this week a major long-term relationship with National Cinemedia to join NBC Universal, Turner Broadcasting, Discovery Communications and Sony as part of the Regal, AMC and Cinemark theater chains' "First Look" pre-movie video entertainment program.

"The big take-away from the research," explained Kearney, "is that people pay more attention to ads on the cinema screen and they find the ads more interesting, which is a compliment to the advertising itself. Over the past five years cinema advertising has been revolutionized. We've gone from people associating cinema with carousel slide projections and primarily local advertising, through the early adoption by national advertising and reported consumer resistance to the advertising. Now we offer state-of-the-art technology and digital systems requiring investments in the hundreds of millions to create something that consumers actively like and welcome. They regard it as improvement to their lives whereby they want to get good seats and there is something entertaining to help occupy their time."

According to the Myers study, funded by more than 20 media companies including Screenvision, 55% of adults 18 to 24 and 28% of adults 18 to 49 say they "pay more attention to commercials in movie theaters than commercials on television." Thirty-six percent of adults 18 to 24 and 31% of adults 18 to 49 say they "consider advertising in movie theaters a recommendation and they are likely to consider purchasing the product or service being advertised."

Enhanced Targeting

"Cinema advertising gives us more opportunity to tailor our creative to audiences that will be receiving the messages," says Guy Slattery, SVP Marketing of A&E. Paraphrasing Group M executive Irwin Gotlieb, Slattery points out "we are able now to do more micro targeting in media than ever before but advertisers are still creating ads designed for masses – rather than targeting specific opportunities with specific messages." Slattery acknowledges that the ability to target specific regions and demos and to pick movie content that best matches History Channel and A&E show content contributes to the value the company is placing on cinema advertising. National Cinemedia president Cliff Marks commented "A&E and History Channel join NCM at a critical juncture of our relatively young history and this is a crucial step in our continuous effort to present the most entertaining and engaging content to our customers."

· Sixty-three percent of 18 to 24 year olds and 59% of adults 18 to 24 report they spend more than ten minutes in a movie theater before the film trailers begin.*

· Twenty-one percent of all adults 18 to 64 spend more than 20 minutes in the theater before the trailers begin.*

Buy Me Some Peanuts & Cracker Jacks; I Don't Care if I Never Get Back

Kearney points out several advertiser categories have embraced cinema advertising, and the ability to zip code match theaters to messages is attracting retail advertisers such as Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Target, Old Navy and Build a Bear. NCM has been presenting the New York Metropolitan Operalive at movie theaters for two years, has sold almost 200,000 tickets for Opera events last year. NCM is also presenting a Garth Brooks concert this month and has presented Prince, The Who, Kiss and dozens of other acts live from the theater, creating a new revenue stream.

Earlier this year, Screenvision sponsored a live New York Mets away game at Manhattan's 1,100 seat Ziegfeld Theater (sponsored by PLP projection system) complete with beer, popcorn, peanuts and Cracker Jacks. The event was sold out, leading to an agreement to host additional games next season. Screenvision will also host live opera from Milan's La Scala at several theaters nationally. Live sponsored events at large movie theater venues offer another opportunity for cinema advertisers, says Kearney.

Matthew Kearney can be contacted at mkearney@screenvision.com. Cliff Marks can be contacted at cliff.marks@ncm.com

Source: Myers Emotional Connections Research 2007. Methodology available at www.JackMyers.com. Emotional Connections is a trademark of Jack Myers.