Frequent Moviegoers Accept, Remember Cinema Ads

Frequent moviegoers (people who attended more than five movies in the past three months) find commercials before movies more acceptable than commercials on television, according to a new report from Arbitron.

Over half (53 percent) of frequent moviegoers find advertising before the movie to be acceptable, versus 46 percent who find television advertising to be acceptable. Moreover, 59 percent of moviegoers recall having watched on-screen commercials before the movie began on their most recent trip to the theater. This is a particularly impressive number considering that not all movie theaters run on-screen ads, Arbitron points out.

The new report, The Arbitron Cinema Advertising Study 2007: Making Brands Shine in the Dark, is a follow-up to Arbitron’s 2003 cinema advertising report.

The study also shows that:

• Cinema advertising connects with the youth market. Advertising in movie theaters reaches over 124 million or 45 percent of Americans 12 or older in a month. Eighty-one percent of teens and 67 percent of young adults age 18-24 have been to the movies in the past 30 days.
• Frequent moviegoers are early adopters and decision influencers. Thirty-two percent of past-month moviegoers and 40 percent of frequent moviegoers feel they are ahead of the curve for buying new products compared with 22 percent of all Americans 12 and older.
• Movie theater advertising can provide an antidote for commercial avoidance. Moviegoers are more likely to use technology that allows them to avoid advertising such as digital video recorders (DVR) for television or pop-up blockers on the Internet.  Moviegoers are more than twice as likely to use a DVR, such as TiVo, compared to non-moviegoers (26 percent vs. 11 percent).

A free copy of the study is available here.
Outdoor advertising is expected to remain the second fastest growing media, after the internet, with a 6.7 percent growth rate, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Among outdoor venues, cinema and transit advertising could grow by 10 to 12 percent, says Stephen Freitas, CMO of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.