Characteristics of Cinema
Cinema advertising, also known as movie theatre advertising, is a form of advertising that involves displaying advertisements on the big screen, typically before the movie starts.
Picture of a movie theatre (souce: Broadsign)
Cinema advertising is a way for advertisers to reach a captive audience, as moviegoers are often in a relaxed and receptive state of mind, making them more likely to engage with the ads. This means that they are more likely to pay attention to the ads and engage with the brand.
Cinema advertising offers some targeting options for reaching a certain audience: advertisers can choose the movie and time of day to display their ads. For example, if an advertiser wants to target young adults, they can display their ads before a popular action or superhero movie that is likely to attract this demographic.
Quality of audio and video playback system in a movie theatre is typically very high, especially when comparing to the experience of looking at video ads for example on phones or laptops. For this reason, cinema advertising provides a opportunity for advertisers to create an immersive experience that captures the attention of the audience on a different level.
Cinema advertising has been around for many years and has evolved with technology. In the early days, advertisers would simply display static slides or film reels before the movie started. Today, with the advent of digital technology, cinema advertising has become more dynamic and interactive. Advertisers can now display high-quality video ads, 3D ads, and even virtual reality experiences.
Metrics and data dimensions for Cinema advertising
Below is a list of typical data dimensions and metrics for Cinema data in Marketing Mix Modeling:
Dimensions | Metrics |
Advertiser attributes (at least name) Campaign attributes (name, id, type..) Time (Year, month, week, day, time..) Ad attributes (type, length,..) Geographical details | Net Spend: What was the spend on the ads, after discounts (e.g. seasonal or other discounts)
Gross Spend: What was the spend on the ads (without taking media discounts in to account) |
Including Cinema in Marketing Mix Modeling
While data specifications for Marketing Mix Modeling can vary depending on the context, a good starting point for Cinema is to use Gross Spend as an input metric in the model.
Gross Spend is typically better than Net Spend, because Net Spend can change even if activity level would remain constant, if discounts are given to the advertiser.
Data integration considerations for Cinema data in Marketing Mix Modeling
Many digital data today can be fetched from ad platforms automatically using data connectors, but for cinema, there is no single standard platform to connect to. For this reason it is highly important to define as early as possible how cinema data is delivered to the Marketing Mix Model. Main option include:
Connecting MMM to advertiser's data warehouse (if advertiser maintains media data in a data warehouse)
Connecting MMM to a advertiser's media agency's data warehouse (if media agency has such solution)
Using an pre-defined excel-template for maintaining the data, which is regularly uploaded to the MMM solution, (example here)
Media planning for Cinema
When conducting media planning, the most typical media metric for cinema to consider is the amount of people likely to see the ad (often called Contacts).