Summer 2007 will be remembered by many businesses as a low point. While the majority of high-street retailers, breweries and supermarkets saw their profits dampened by persistent rain, cinema was one of the few sectors to benefit from the washout. The bad weather and big family-film releases such as Harry Potter and the Order Of the Phoenix and Shrek the Third combined to help drive the UK box office to a 32-year high in July, while admissions jumped by 23% to 49m in the third quarter, according to the Cinema Advertising Association - equivalent to 3.7m a week.
Sodden film fans were not the only ones flocking to the cinema over the period. A growing number of brands have been snubbing other media in favour of the big screen. Cinema's rising star has helped to lure new advertisers, including Pizza Hut, Subway and Woolworths, as well as enticing lapsed clients, such as IKEA, back to the fold.
The latter dropped cinema ads from its marketing strategy two years ago, but was drawn back by the medium's ability to reach a growing audience. 'Cinema is an appointment-to-view medium where there is massive impact,' says Vala Magnadottir, IKEA's UK external marketing specialist. 'The act of watching ads in the cinema is part and parcel of the whole event, with people arriving early to see the ad reel. People talk about what they have seen after the film.'
She points to cinema advertising's directness as a further benefit. 'Our ad gave us a platform to get a new and interesting message across without any distraction. The message behind the ad cut through at a high level.'
Research carried out by Carlton Screen Advertising supports this view. 'People might remember thematics from a TV ad, but at the cinema they can remember the precise details such as straplines or a bank's interest rates,' says Chris Hall, research account director at the ITV-owned cinema ad sales house. 'You have a captive audience - heads forward, lights off.'
As well as gaining the undivided attention of its customers, cinema can also deliver a broad range of demographics. 'Over the past 10 years there has been a huge growth in the five- to 14-year-olds sector due to films such as Shrek,' says Ian Cartwright, creative solutions account director at Carlton Screen Advertising. 'Family films also bring in parents and grandparents, so there has been a huge growth in the 34-plus audience.' Capturing the family in one fell swoop is no mean feat. 'It's very rare in TV, but cinema can still deliver that,' says Hall. 'Family packages have proved very successful in bringing a lot of the FMCG advertisers that want to attract parents and kids at the same time.'
Carlton Screen Advertising and Volvo tapped into this family market in October, running live interactive gaming sessions at 12 cinemas showing the Disney-Pixar film Ratatouille. Using motion-sensor technology to track an audience's combined movements, filmgoers acted as 'human joysticks'. Their hand motions controlled a virtual Volvo XC70 four-wheel drive car around a large-scale driving terrain. According to Carlton Screen Advertising, it was the first time gaming had been used as part of an in-cinema campaign in Europe.
'The concept was developed to engage a group of people and take video gaming, traditionally an individual pastime, to a truly sociable environment,' says Anita Fox, head of marketing communications at Volvo Car UK. 'By working together as a team, having fun and sharing the experience, it's the perfect way to communicate Volvo's "Life is better lived together" brand message.'
Interactivity is also a key ingredient in the use of Bluetooth technology, which is helping to distance cinema advertising from the ticket stubs and popcorn buckets of old. The medium's first UK test, for a Toyota campaign, made audio content available for download via Bluetooth at 25 Vue cinemas. It offered an original piece of music created for the Toyota Aygo and mixed by Michael Fakesch, which could be played or saved as a ringtone. Toyota bought 10,000 downloads on a cost-per-click basis and ran a two-week poster campaign, with the aim that the 10,000 downloads mark would be reached in a week. The target was actually achieved in two days.
The use of the medium has been extended, with the biggest investment yet put behind a UK Bluetooth ad campaign to back the integrated launch of LG's Viewty camera phone. Bluepod Media helped LG offer movie clips for consumers to download to their mobiles at Vue and Cineworld cinemas. The aim was to reach 370,000 downloads in a month, but 432,000 was hit in three weeks - 62,000 extra, 10 days faster than expected.
'It illustrates how this cinema audience is in tune with this type of technology,' says Mike Hope-Milne, enterprise director at cinema ad sales house Pearl & Dean. 'If they have the right copy, one of the advantages for advertisers is that they only buy the "click" for the ad that's downloaded. If it's good, the chances are it will be passed on, potentially making it very cost-efficient as a viral campaign.'
Innovative advertising doesn't always have to involve flashy, cutting-edge technology, though. Last summer Red Bull promoted the London leg of its Air Race World Series with 3-D cinema, TV and outdoor activity. The energy-drink brand booked a slot with Carlton Screen Advertising to run a 30-second 3-D ad prior to screenings of Shrek the Third and Harry Potter. Cinema-goers were given 3-D glasses as they entered Odeon and Cineworld screens in the South East. They were then shown a two-minute introductory film on the Red Bull Air Race before the 3-D spot was screened.
'Our only concern was that the glasses would not be distributed to some people,' admits Chris Carter, planning manager at Red Bull UK. 'We used dump bins and had agreements where possible for the cinemas to hand out the glasses as they checked tickets. The trouble is, you're not personally there to give them out, so with the best will in the world, some people miss out.'
Despite the anxieties, he believes it was worth the effort. 'We had amazing recall and more than 75% of Londoners were aware of the event,' he says. 'When you factor in word of mouth, which we also researched as we expected people to tell others, we got a great return on investment, even taking into account all the production costs.'
Cinema owners have also been trying to give filmgoers a taste of alternative content, such as live entertainment or sporting events. Vue has sold tickets for screenings of concerts by Take That and Genesis, comedy shows by Ross Noble, Formula One racing and a live red carpet feed from the premiere of Kylie Minogue's White Diamond documentary. According to Pearl & Dean, the idea now is to find commercial partners this year for the three core strands of music, sport and comedy.
'Alternative content offers more choice and can bring in different types of people,' says Mark de Quervain, sales and marketing director for Vue Entertainment. The artists involved also stand to make huge gains from cinema exposure. 'They get a massive outreach in a way they wouldn't otherwise be able to, particularly when their live shows are sold out,' says de Quervain. 'They also get a huge amount of marketing from us.'
Fuelling all this activity is cinema's ability to generate revenue for advertisers. 'All the research we have done shows that cinema advertising makes a very real contribution to ROI, especially as we have a range of brands looking to target an audience that is typical of cinema-goers,' says Richard Brooke, communication buying manager for Unilever in the UK, which plans to spend between 4% and 6% of its advertising budget on cinema in 2008. 'There is also the advantage of real relevance for our ice-cream brands such as Ben & Jerry's, Wall's and Magnum, which have long been part of the cinema experience.'
Brooke is unequivocal about cinema's contribution to Unilever and his thoughts neatly sum up its attraction to a wide range of brands. 'It allows us to reach the consumer at a time when his or her concentration is absolute, when the anticipation of being entertained is high and ad avoidance is low,' he says. 'It's marketing gold dust.'
CASE STUDY - ORANGE
Over the past five years Orange's cinema campaign 'The Film Board' has become an established part of the British movie-going experience. Occupying the so-called 'gold spot' - the much coveted last ad slot before the film begins - the work has seen a list of famous names pitch their movie ideas to a fictional Orange panel obsessed with product placement.
'Cinema is a hugely important part of our advertising structure,' says Mat Sears, entertainment brand marketing manager at Orange, pointing to its sponsorship of the Bafta film awards and 拢13.5m spend on cinema advertising in 2007. 'Cinema is where the 16- to 34-year-old audience indexes highly and that audience is essential to us as a mobile operator.'
Although the ads do not push products or services, they have helped create a strong link between Orange and the cinema. 'From our brand tracking we know we are the number-one brand associated with film in the UK,' says Sears. 'That's very powerful. We are also the only mobile operator advertising at the cinema.'
Orange is mulling over adding more product-specific cinema ads to its portfolio, according to Sears, but for the time being, he is more than happy with the gold spot's performance. 'It allows us to put our brand on a pedestal and make people laugh,' he says. 'We can use other channels to talk about products. If you take the gold spot and then add the Orange Wednesday two-for-one film tickets offer, people really start to warm to us.'
CINEMA AD REVENUES
2007: 拢203m
2009: 拢215m*
Source: Cinema Advertising Association
*Predicted