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see this movie ad'
Surprise, movie-goers accepting of commercials
By Kevin Downey
Those irritating commercials playing before movies like “The Matrix Reloaded” apparently aren’t as irritating as the grumbling popcorn-tossers behind you might suggest.
Fully 66 percent of moviegoers say they don’t mind the commercials, and frequent and young moviegoers are even more accepting of the ads, according to a new study by Arbitron.
Moreover, half of moviegoers say the commercials running before movies are more interesting than ads on television, and 86 percent say they recall seeing ads before the movie, based on responses to telephone surveys Arbitron conducted between July 2002 and April this year.
“That was surprising but then you have to look at the demographics,” says Pierre Bouvard, president of new ventures at Arbitron. “They are younger and more upscale, and they tend to find the commercials to be more entertaining.
“I think when you have advertisers trying to be more creative and entertaining, like with Super Bowl ads, you’re increasing the appeal of advertising.”
While pre-movie ads are proving acceptable to moviegoers, movie screens are proving to be an appealing outlet for advertisers, according to Arbitron.
About 40 percent of people over the age of 12, or 95 million people, said in January they saw at least one movie in the past month. The average moviegoer sees an average of two movies per month, or roughly the equivalent of five hours in the movie theater. In comparison, the average person watches more than three hours of television per day.
Still, movies reach about 61 percent of people over the course of six months.
Moviegoers tend to be light users of some other media types, notably television, and tend to be younger than average. Arbitron found that 71 percent of teens and 61 percent of adults 18-24 have seen a movie in the past month.
The movie theater is also a prime location for commercials because moviegoers are in their seats an average 13 minutes before the movie begins.
“There is a lot of discussion about [commercial] zapping, that with people wielding their remote control aggressively and with TiVo, it’s harder to reach your audience,” says Bouvard.
“People [at the movies] are in the mood to be entertained, so I think mood-wise, they are more receptive.”
Moviegoers are also a captive audience, at least in the sense that once seated they don’t have any means of turning off the commercials.
While the Arbitron study found that most moviegoers are not bothered by the pre-movie commercials, those ads – and the “captive audience” selling point – have sparked a protest by a loud but perhaps small group of moviegoers.
A class action suit, centering on movies starting late because of commercials, was filed in Illinois earlier this year against Loews Cineplex, while numerous web sites like Didntialreadypayforthismovie.com have sprung up as a forum for disgruntled moviegoers to voice their complaints.
A group called Captive Motion Picture Audience of America is targeting Regal Cinemas.
A statement against that movie chain posted on Petition Online says in part, “We believe the forced viewing of commercials before films will prove to be unprofitable for theaters that engage in the practice, and further alienate audiences into seeking alternative means of entertainment.”
“You can go into any chat room in this country and I guarantee you’ll find people who are unhappy about anything,” says Bouvard. “It seems the people up in arms about commercials tend to be the less-frequent moviegoers.”
As Arbitron’s study found, however, not everyone is unhappy about pre-movie commercials.
An unscientific poll conducted by Scholastic News Online, a web site geared to third- to eighth-graders, found 83 percent of respondents, or just under 35,000 kids, answered “yes” when asked if commercials should be shown before movies.
May 21, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life
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