January 2006   

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

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

Further research shows that advertising’s impact on Awareness and Purchase Intent was highest early on in the campaigns, at least 4 weeks (21-27 days) prior to the movie release date. 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 movie release with an increase of +13.9 points in consumers’ intent to buy movie tickets. While campaigns still have a positive impact on both metrics over time, the impact decreases as the movie 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 movie advertising performance.

First: there is the initial boom and buzz effect. Since movie 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 movie can be generated immediately once people become aware of one that looks interesting to them. For online advertising specifically, roughly two in three movie 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’ movie dollars increases as the release date nears. The closer you get to the movie 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 movies to see. Movie consumption requires a relatively heavy time commitment – the average movie-goer is likely to whittle down his or her choices of movies to see in a given week, rather than see all of them.

Other sources in the form of movie critics and other word-of-mouth reviews also begin to play a greater role in the movie decision making process in the immediate weeks prior to release date. Thus, advertising’s role in driving people to theaters can be diminished where 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 movie is a new brand, so raising awareness is an important first step. The more people are aware of a movie 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 movie as the release date approaches.
• Creative content is STILL key. Use creative that will both generate an interest in the movie and provide a strong call to action to see the movie from the outset of a campaign.
• Rich media, especially online video ads, are highly recommended. Ads showing movie trailers can also be an appealing draw as they entertain as well as inform consumers. By providing a “sneak peak” of the movie trailer, ads with video can be powerful influence on potential movie-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 movie.
• Weekend advertising is especially effective. Our analysis also found that positive movie awareness can be generated on all days of the week; however, it is most effective during weekends: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For generating movie 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 optimize 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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