CINEMA ADVERTISING

In-Cinema Advertising

Now, over a century old, the Indian film industry is worth Rs. 13,000 crore and more. Nearly 30 films across 10 different languages are released every week. Experts point out that an estimated 3.5 billion tickets are sold annually and an average Indian visits the theatre thrice every year. It has also built up a great eco-system for brands to interact with audiences.

In-cinema advertising refers to on-screen and off-screen branding that consumers see in theatres. Many mainstream brands today are using in-cinema advertising and have upped spends after realizing the impact. In the on-screen space, a brand can run the traditional 30-, 45- or 60 second promos or 10-second static slides giving information.

The interactive use of on-screen space has clicked too. Nokia designed a short film for the Lumia. In it, the protagonist, who is trapped in a maze, calls a person from the audience to help him out. The activation-cum-on-screen film ends with the protagonist coming out in person and gifting the viewer a Nokia Lumia.

In the off-screen space, there is a mind-boggling variety of options ranging from seats, auditorium name (or door), lobby, wall, floor, box office, security check point, popcorn counter, lift, kiosk, product display, staircase, washroom, ticket jackets, interactive zones or kiosks, poster box and sampling.

Piramal Healthcare partnered with Big Cinemas across 100 screens and placed the I-Sure (an ovulation test kit) communication in women's washrooms. The dialogue between the brand and the consumer happened very well.

Cinema delivers unparalleled impact as brands play with the senses of the consumer.

A brand manager is upset if the consumer switches channels, closes a browser or chooses the YouTube ad skip button but he is happy at a theatre because it does not allow the consumer this luxury.

Brands get a captive audience glued to the screens. Brands, however, get to know who they are interacting with and that the chances of spillover are less. Cinema gives you a unique audience in every show and we can advertise in select geographies with different propositions. 

In 2012-13, for instance, 9XM ran campaigns in 100 Cinemax screens (now PVR) in the Hindi-speaking markets to promote its Bade Chhote characters. Since it played Bollywood music, theatres were the perfect destination."

The medium allows even the small retailer to advertise and play longer ads that could be prohibitively expensive on TV. The effect, however, may not be the same. "It is not a frequency building medium. The cinema screen acts as an ancillary to any large TVC. 

Theatres are great for sampling. Samsung, for instance, placed small fridges in the aisle next to the seats in PVR's Gold Class filled with eatables and encouraged viewers to consume the products and judge the efficacy of the fridge.

There are many reason why in-cinema advertising was not explored much in the past. Single screen theatres used print rolls that were prone to damage, expensive to produce and had to be distributed individually to each theatre.

These theatres were not designed for off-screen branding and mostly reported incorrect footfall numbers. Piracy also lead to several single screens shutting down. All that has changed. The emergence of multiplexes and their rapid expansion to tier I and II cities is a big reason why this change has begun. In 2013, growth came from tier II and III cities. PVR added 60 screens, Inox 21 and Satyam Cineplex (now Inox) 12 that year.

In 2013, Interactive Television also launched Cinema Auditing and Monitoring (CAM) Report, a proprietary tool to ensure transparency in the audit of Cinema advertising. It is the only third party monitoring system available in the country for Cinema advertising. The monitoring is carried out in top 8 cities covering 200 screens which contribute approximately 60 per cent of the cinema ADEX in a given week. 

Multiplexes have better ambience and good picture quality and drew SEC A, AB, A+ audiences back to the theatres. A KPMG report points out that the occupancy levels for major multiplexes rose from 23-27 per cent in 2011 to 30 per cent in 2013. PVR claims to get more than 72 million viewers annually, while Big Cinemas gets 40 million.

Other developments have changed the movie-going experience. Digitization has improved film quality. Digital prints cost less than analogue and are easy to distribute. Today, viewers in big and small cities get to see the show on the day of release. Kick, for example, was released simultaneously in 4,000 screens. Producers push films on as many screens on Day One but their shelf life is low.

Multiplexes monitor footfalls and provide brands with a log of the ad (when, where and how many times it played) thereby bringing transparency. Most multiplexes have a capacity of 200-500, giving them the flexibility to run small ticket films, giving more options to the advertisers.

When it comes to in-cinema advertising, are there watertight compartments? Do regional brands advertise? The fact that a movie is regional, Bollywood or English does affect advertisers' decisions. Most brands tend to go for larger Hindi releases with assured eyeballs. Advertising depends on the resources available, not whether the movie is regional, Bollywood or Hollywood. If the brand is allocating budgets to its regional offices then advertising with regional and small budget movies is more. But if it is only from the central pool then it is mostly the national campaigns with big ticket films.

Ref: Dr. H. Lakdawala's Media Planning and Buying Notes