| 'The U.S. is catching up with the Europeans, who have been into cinema for the past 40 years. We had so much television to choose from that that was the best advertising over here. Now ad agencies are saying it’s the right time for use of cinema.'
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so are America's top advertisers
Loads of ad messages for the holiday crowd
By Kathy Prentice
While holiday moviegoers are waiting for Tom Hanks to appear on the screen in "The Green Mile" or Susan Saradon in "Anywhere But Here," chances are they’ll see Coke, Nike and the local burger joint ads on the screen first.
Indeed, they'll be seeing a lot more of them this Christmas season.
Cinema advertising--slides and rolling stock--is now appearing on 50 percent of America’s 36,000 theater screens and enjoying double-digit growth.
"Business is growing at a rate of 50 percent to 70 percent a year," says Dennis Fogarty, CEO of New York based Screenvision Cinema Network. "The advertising community is looking for something new and we’re able to deliver a variety of different ways to impact target consumers in a single venue."
Product promotions have begun to take off, as well as pre-show slides and commercials. The consumer usually sees a mix of national and local brands.
What products sell at the movies?
"Automobiles have always been our leading category," says Fogarty, whose Screenvision has a sales office in Detroit as well as in hotter markets like Los Angeles and New York.
"It’s all about branding. We do a lot of business in footwear and apparel--Nike, Reebok, Lee and Levi--and in technology with companies like AT&T, MCI and Motorola."
And there’s the dot.coms, leading growth in most advertising venues.
"They’ve just exploded," says Fogarty. "We’ve got a huge number of proposals out for the first quarter of next year already."
Local businesses typically dominate the slide shows. Automobile dealerships, health care providers from dentists to chiropractors, local restaurants and insurance companies submit a billboard image or logo that the cinema advertisers format for their screens.
Ad agencies submit creative for national accounts, sometimes using footage filmed originally for television. Starcom puts Nintendo on the big screen and Ogilvy & Mather has placed American Express and Kodak with Screenvision.
But cinema advertising creative these days isn’t just a blowup of billboard or a rerun of television advertisements.
Light type on dark backgrounds using brief copy--15 words or less--work best for slides says Kevin Romano, president of Cinema Advertising International.
"The problem we have with local advertisers is they want to include everything about their business plus the kitchen sink."
Cinema ad companies try to keep a 50/50 mix of entertainment--movie and movie star trivia--and advertisements. Slides carousels hold 81 images and rotate between showings.
"Rolling stock, because of its nature, has to have a lot of entertainment value and not be overly selling. Not a lot of product attributes and talking heads," says Fogarty. "Those types of commercials don’t belong in cinema."
Carefully crafted creative and a captive audience pay off. Research shows that recall is three times higher for cinema slides than it is for television and five times higher for rolling stock says Edward Torres, Cinema’s vice president of sales.
"Cinema advertising compliments the fragmentation in television," says Fogarty. "We know viewers want sight and motion. Seventy five percent of the cinema audience will recall an advertising message. For the [televised] Superbowl last year it was 5 percent. The average channel changes every 47 seconds and commercials just don’t get viewed in their entirely."
Moviegoers get a mix of national and local campaigns, with national rolling film ads dominating the top 25 markets and slides at the locally-driven under 50 markets. Cinema Ads International is on 3,000 screens, with heaviest placement in the top 25 markets. Not as many ads are placed in the West, where movie studios own theaters and play trailers for their new productions.
But it all started locally says Romano, who launched Cinema Ads International on Chinatown screens a decade ago using Chinese subtitles.
There’s a seasonal jump in movie going, with a corresponding slump in television.
"So a lot of retailers jump," says Torres. "Local restaurants, jewelry, even ads for employment peak during the holidays until the end of the year."
As demand swells, availability has increased with the construction of new screens.
Advertisers pay International on a per screen basis. Screenvision sells on a cost per thousand basis that varies geographically. A 30 second unit of rolling stock shows nationally for $18 and regionally for $31. Slides go (locally, the only way they’re sold) at $19 per thousand.
And product promotions are adding a new dimension.
"We’re broadening our scope to include movie ticketing," says Torres. "A full-color perforated stub that sells for about 5 cent per ticket. Kellogg’s recently bought all of Pittsburgh."
Signage from posters to ceiling danglers to counter cards are also offered by Screenvision in theaters. For promotions they’ve handed out Barney sunblock, CDs for Lycos and Netzero.com and they’ve printed advertisements for Target stores and American Express on popcorn bags. They also have ads running on television monitors in movie lobbies to catch customers waiting in line.
"The 'Green Mile' is a long movie, three hours, and there are multiple opportunities for marketers to contact their target audience," says Fogarty.
And there’s still room for growth.
"We’ve gone from 6,000 screens to 13,000 over the past 3 years," says Fogarty. "We have a 50 percent repeat rate and new people coming in on top. We expect in the year 2000 to take on a 50 percent increase just from the Internet category.
"The U.S. is catching up with the Europeans, who have been into cinema for the past 40 years. We had so much television to choose from that that was the best advertising over here. Now ad agencies are saying it’s the right time for use of cinema--we’re running out of inventory every month. It’s a happy situation for us."
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Kathy Prentice covers outdoor and radio for Media Life.
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