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on the silver screen
Reaching captive eyeballs before the feature film
Kathy Prentice
Over this last weekend, anticipating the July 4 holiday, Hollywood rolled out four new potential blockbusters-- “A.I.,” “Baby Boy,” “Pootie Tang” and “crazy/beautiful.”
But patrons coming to these shows also saw ads for all manner of consumer products mixed in with the trailers.
Big summer movie premieres aren’t clustered just around holidays anymore. And advertising in theaters has moved beyond logos flashed on the screens while the popcorn line receded.
Lobbies, once reserved exclusively for studio ads, are now open to outside advertisers. Ads are also appearing on ticket backs and popcorn buckets.
To find out how to get your client up there with the stars, read on.
This is one in a Media Life series on buying the new out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.
Fast Facts:
What:
Advertising opportunities, on the screen and beyond, in movie theaters.
Who:
National Cinema Network, headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri.
How it works:
Advertising is available in three areas of movie theaters, says Laura Adler, vice president of marketing at NCN.
On-screen ads can be in the form of slides or rolling stock. Lobby advertising can be signage, audio, sampling and concession.
Not every venue is available in every market.
Pre-feature media on the big screen includes slide programs presenting each image for 8 to 10 seconds, two to three times during the pre-show slot, providing exposure for each advertiser every 4.5 minutes.
“The slide format is primarily used by local and regional advertisers,” Adler says. “They can really target geographically.”
Rolling stock are 30- and 60-second commercials shown while house lights are still up.
“Sight, sound and motion are more popular with national advertisers,” Adler says.
“On screen advertising is for branding,” Adler says. “Nothing is better because of the recall. ‘Pre-Show Countdown’ rolling stock was 78 percent, compared to 22 percent for television in a Nielsen February 2001 study.”
Lobby marketing includes CineTickets, four-color detachable coupons that are issued with each seat purchased.
CineSign and CineKiosk are backlit displays--either four-foot by nine-foot signs or signage with end-cap interactive kiosks--at theater entrances and exits that are available in the top 10 national markets.
Movie Tunes, with audio advertisements, are played in lobbies, concession areas, restrooms and auditoriums.
Cine Promotions include product sampling, demonstrations and banners, posters, static clings, counter-top and floor displays.
“CineBuckets” are ads on popcorn buckets and bags sold at cinema concessions.
Advertisers can target specific demographics through sampling. An example, Adler says, is including a product for children in a popcorn and soda “kids’ pack” through concessions.
Advertisers can also tie in to NCN’s entertainment web site, which links to movie reviews, show times and ticket sales.
Most cinema campaigns run four weeks, with slide programming running longer.
When an advertiser buys a theater, the ads appear on every screen.
Different types of cinema advertising are frequently packaged, and the entire venue is most often used as an element in mixed-media campaigns, Adler says.
When the Hair Cuttery, a national chain, was recruiting staff, it ran slides with NCN and used the same creative in a print ad.
“The creative was a picture of a woman with the Meg Ryan look, short, bouncy hair, along with the logo and web address,” says Tracey Loh, senior buyer-planner for the Chicago-area Timberlake Media agency who placed the ads.
Creative is provided by advertisers, with assistance available through NCN’s in-house production department.
Slides and signage should follow standard out-of-home guidelines.
“You definitely want powerful visuals, with very few words,” Adler says. Popcorn bags and boxes also work well with brief, bold branding.
Logos and URLs are used in most creative.
Advertisers can run multiple slides in sequence. For example, The Arizona Republic ran a three-slide ad to brand their new theater critic.
“The first showed a picture of a hotdog with the tagline ‘breakfast,’ the second showed nachos and said ‘lunch’ with the third showing a big box of popcorn and ‘dinner,’” says Robin Kenny of Cramer Krasselt, who placed the ad for the Phoenix newspaper. The punchline was that Bill Muller, the critic, lives for movies, on theater fare.
Rolling stock should be entertaining and not simply informative. Advertisers often develop unique creative for rolling stock, though 30- and 60-second commercials used in television campaigns are frequently used, especially when the TV run is part of a campaign mix running during the same time period.
Pre-feature ads are delivered to theaters digitally via satellite.
Advertisers using on-screen slides can buy market by market or cherry-pick theaters.
When Chicago-area Timberlake Media placed a slide campaign for Hair Cuttery, they used an atlas to plot which theaters to buy based on the salons’ locations.
Rolling stock advertisers buy on a market-wide basis.
Lobby venues are available by theaters' circuit or market, depending on the product, Adler says.
The availability of exclusivity depends on the product. Slides offer limited exclusivity. Lobby signage is limited to one advertiser at a time. At the concession counter, popcorn containers can be bought by only one advertiser at a time, and soft drink competitors would not be considered for advertising.
Seasonal targets include traditional holiday-period premieres, though Adler says studios are extending release dates and they are currently almost year-round.
Advertisers also target time periods that fit their multi-media campaigns. Other calendar factors might include a product tie-in to a movie release.
“For instance, a new James Bond movie might have him driving a BMW, so the BMW dealerships would want to tie in to that release,” Adler says.
Markets:
Cinema ads are available in all major and secondary markets.
Numbers:
How measured? NCN uses attendance figures to estimate impressions.
One industry source estimates 150 million moviegoers monthly to American theaters. Of these, NCN has contracted with theaters serving 75 million.
Annually, NCN reaches seven times the number of people who attend all professional baseball, football, basketball and hockey games combined, according to the 2000 MPAA U.S. Economic Review, from MPA Worldwide Market Research.
NCN network includes 25-plus circuit partners representing more than 10,000 screens. Partners include Amstar, American Multi-Cinema, Bainbridge, Carmike, CinemaStar Luxury Theaters, Clearview, Cobb, Consolidated, General Cinema, Georgia Theatre Company, Kerasotes, LoneStar, Mann, Marcus, Metropolitan, Mitchell, National Amusements, Pacific, Resort Theatres, So Cal, Starplex and Wallace Theatres.
Research:
What product categories do well? As of June, the top 10 most popular cinema advertising categories are cable television, automotive, government (recruitment), hospitals and medical centers, computer software services, internet retail, education, public service/nonprofits, fast food and amusement/theme parks.
Telecommunications, restaurants and retail are also top national product categories, while health centers and local TV stations do well regionally, Adler says.
Alcohol and tobacco are not accepted for advertising. “All of our messages have to be G-rated,” Adler says.
Cinema advertising is growing 20 percent annually in the U.S. , according to NCN.
Day-after recall for NCN’s on-screen commercials is 62 percent, which is three times higher than the day-after recall scores achieved by TV, according to Nielsen New Media Services.
Demographics:
“Moviegoers provide a prime demographic,” Adler says. “They’re primarily 18 to 49 with a high income, are well educated, and are entertainment seekers that spend money.”
Slides and rolling stock target the broad demographic because they’re shown before every show.
“It’s hard to narrowly target demographics because your slides go into rotation, whether it’s for a Disney movie or a slasher movie,” Kenny says.
The age of movie-going audiences, starting with age 12, breaks down as follows according to a Mediamark study conducted in Spring 2000:
- 12- to 17-year-olds make up 14.4 percent
- 18- to 24-year-olds make up 13.3 percent, while 18- to 34-year-olds make up 33 percent and 18- to 49-year-olds make up 62.3 percent
- 25- to 54-year-olds make up 55.7 percent
According to the same study, the income of movie-going audiences 18+ is:
- 17 percent make $100,000+
- 30.7 percent make $75,000+
- 43.1 percent make $60,000+
- 52.7 percent make $50,000+
- 64.5 percent make $40,000+
- 76.2 percent make 30,000+
And education for the 18+ movie-going crowd looks like this:
- 28 percent graduated from college
- 32 percent attended college
- 87.5 percent graduated from high school
Frequent moviegoers are defined as attending the movies once or more each month. The following Mediamark Research study, conducted in Spring 2000, compares frequent moviegoers with the general population.
Restaurants: Frequent moviegoers are 34 percent more likely to have eaten 6+ times at a family restaurant over the past 30 days and 9+ times more likely to have eaten at a fast food restaurant.
Retail: Frequent moviegoers are 58 percent more likely to have spent $1,000+ on clothing and 113 percent more likely to have bought 31+ CDs and audiotapes over the past 12 months. They are 48 percent more likely to have purchased five-plus videos over the past 30 days.
Telecommunications: Use is higher among frequent moviegoers, with 36 percent more likely to use voice mail at home, 34 percent more likely to own a pager, 23 percent more likely to use call waiting at home and 22 percent more likely to own a cellular phone.
Travel: Frequent moviegoers are 80 percent more likely to have taken three or more domestic plane trips and 47 percent more likely to be part of a frequent flyer program. They are 45 percent more likely to head to a beach and to go shopping on a domestic vacation. Foreign travel is 44 percent more likely over the past three years.
Sports: They are more likely to participate in most sports, with racquetball at 135 percent, hockey at 110 percent, kick boxing at 100 percent, skateboarding at 93 percent, tennis at 88 percent, soccer at 85 percent, running at 83 percent, rock climbing at 78 percent, football at 74 percent, hiking at 68 percent, basketball at 67 percent, aerobics at 66 percent, martial arts at 65 percent, bowling at 56 percent, swimming at 45 percent, baseball at 34 percent and golf at 33 percent.
Sporting events: Frequent moviegoers attend any sporting event 36 percent more often than the general population with pro ice hockey at 57 percent, pro basketball at 55 percent, college football at 53 percent, baseball and tennis at 48 percent, pro football at 44 percent, pro wrestling at 36 percent and pro soccer at 26 percent.
Other leisure activities for frequent moviegoers include live theater at 69 percent, dance performances at 68 percent, dancing at 66 percent, billiards at 65 percent, video games at 55 percent, music performances at 53 percent and surfing the net at 47 percent.
NCN’s Pre-Show Countdown is shown in theaters with an average performance index of 147, compared to an average of 96 for non-NCN theaters that show rolling stock, according to a 1999 AC Nielsen EDI. Performance index measures theater grosses vs. national average revenues for weekly top 16 films. Additionally, over 70 percent of Pre-Show Countdown screens feature state-of-the-art digital sound systems.
Making the buy:
Lead time depends on the product, in terms of production and scheduling, Adler says, with four weeks for production and four for installation standard for on-screen ads.
Pre-Show Countdown, with a total of three minutes running time, has limited availability.
“Typically, rolling stock for Thanksgiving is booked by August,” Adler says.
Slide carousels also fill up early, with a number of slots reserved for mandatory entertainment content and theater announcements.
Lobby venues typically have longer lead times because space is limited.
“We only have one advertiser at a time on the signs,” Adler says. The same goes for concession bags and boxes.
Contracts are usually for four weeks, except slide campaigns, which can run on an annual basis.
Factors that affect pricing include number of theaters, contract length, time of year and product mix.
Signage is sold on a per-sign basis, while Countdown is sold per screen.
Who’s already in movie theaters?
The Arizona Republic, Hair Cuttery, Discovery Channel, Ford, Nike, BMW, AT&T, McDonald’s, American Eagle Outfitters, Army National Guard, Boys Club, Burger King, California Pizza Kitchen, Calvin Klein Fragrances, CBS, Coca-Cola, Donna Karan Fragrances, Fox TV, GTE, Lee Jeans, Macy’s, Nissan Maxima, Nokia, Sony Digital Sound, Turner Broadcasting, United Paramount, U.S. Marines and others.
What they’re saying:
“It’s purely for branding, to get a name out there.” - Robin Kenny of Phoenix-based Cramer Krasselt.
Web site info:
National Cinema Network at www.ncninc.com
Contacts:
Reach NCN at 1-800-screen-1 or 1-800-727-3361
Etc.
For one more place to advertise at the movies, see “Put Your Client on Towelettes” in the Media Life out-of-home archives (Jan. 8, 2001).
July 2, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Kathy Prentice writes about out-of-home advertising for Media Life, penning her stories from the resort town of Traverse City, in the upper reaches of Michigan.
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