January 2006   

Online Cinema Marketers: Get Those Ads Online Four Weeks Before Release

A recent analysis of 57 cinema campaigns for in-theatre releases within Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms database (Q3/2005) reveals that online cinema ads perform among one of the highest industries in positively raising Aided Brand Awareness (+9.8) and Brand Favourability (+4.3) on average.

Further research shows that advertising's impact on Awareness and Purchase Intent peaked 3-4 weeks prior to the film being released. In fact, the online advertising's impact at four weeks out was quadruple what it was a week from the release date, +22.5 points compared to +5.4 points, respectively. Similarly, and perhaps somewhat surprising, the impact on Purchase Intent is greatest about 4 weeks (21 or more days) prior to the cinema release with an increase of +13.9 points in consumers' intent to buy cinema tickets. While campaigns still have a positive impact on both metrics over time, the impact decreases as the film release date nears, as shown in the chart below.

The diminishing returns in awareness can be largely attributed to simple statistics; baselines go up over time as more people are made aware, so there are fewer people left to be influenced. However, there are some other important factors to consider that shed some light on online cinema advertising performance.

First: there is the initial boom and buzz effect. Since cinema consumers want to be entertained, initial advertising is meant to create buzz and get audiences excited and talking about the film. Intent to see a new film can be generated immediately once people become aware of one that looks interesting to them. For online advertising specifically, roughly two in three cinema ads are rich media units, which outperform standard gif/jpegs by 20% on average. Rich media ads tend to grab attention more easily and require fewer exposures to do so; online video ads are most influential at first or second exposure. This creates an initial wave of impact that is difficult to sustain long-term.

Second: competition for consumers' cinema spending increases as the release date nears. The closer you get to the film release date, potential audiences are more likely to be aware of competitive entertainment options for the same weekend and will become more discriminating in their choice of films to see. Cinema consumption requires a relatively heavy time commitment - the average cinema-goer is likely to whittle down his or her choices of films to see in a given week, rather than see all of them.

Other sources in the form of film critics and other word-of-mouth reviews also begin to play a greater role in the cinema decision making process in the immediate weeks prior to release date. Thus, advertising's role in driving people to theatres can be diminished where positive or negative reviews override the impact of the campaign.

Given the above, we have the following tips for marketers:

• Leverage the "buzz factor" early to generate awareness. Each new film is a new brand, so raising awareness is an important first step. The more people are aware of a film early on before competitive and secondary factors increase their role in the decision-making process, the greater the number of people who will be able to consider the film as the release date approaches.
• Creative content is STILL key. Use creative that will both generate an interest in the film and provide a strong call to action to see the film from the outset of a campaign.
• Rich media, especially online video ads, are highly recommended. Ads showing film trailers can also be an appealing draw as they entertain as well as inform consumers. By providing a "sneak peak" of the trailer, ads with video can be powerful influence on potential cinema-goers. They have the ability to raise awareness and provide enough information that the consumer can evaluate whether or not they want to actually watch the film.
• Weekend advertising is especially effective. Our analysis also found that positive cinema awareness can be generated on all days of the week; however, it is most effective during weekends: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For generating cinema ticket purchases, again, Friday and Saturday have the highest impact compared to other days of the week.

NOTE: Dynamic Logic's MarketNorms® is a marketing effectiveness database. These findings are aggregate in nature, reflect past results and are not a guarantee of future results for individual campaigns.

Advertisers, publishers and agencies use MarketNorms® to understand which aspects of online advertising have the greatest impact on brand lift. The MarketNorms database developed by Dynamic Logic of over 2,100 campaigns across more than a dozen industries has branding lift metrics, ad and brand attributes, environmental/site data, audience data and other campaign information collected in over 2,800,000 surveys.
www.marketnorms.com

Dynamic Logic's CrossMedia Research™ measures the value of integrated media packages and quantifies the success of a cross-media campaign with any combination of online, print, television or radio. CrossMedia Research allows advertisers, agencies and publishers to understand cost effectiveness of different media in the mix.

Dynamic Logic's AdIndex® is a research tool used by online advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their campaign beyond click-through. By providing real-time metrics on brand awareness, purchase intent, message association, and creative evaluation; AdIndex empowers online marketers to optimise their campaigns and get a true measure of the campaign's impact.

AdIndex was developed by Dynamic Logic and has multiple patents pending.
www.adindex.com

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