In the cinema, advertising is not a background noise

In the latest issue of Marketing&Media 2024/3, you can read about what made 2023 a fantastic year for cinema media, the results of this year's Oscar Gala, the blockbuster movies of 2024, the major mergers in the film distribution market and last but not least, whether it is possible to outperform the previous years. In the cinema pages of the magazine you can find out a little more about the Cinema City / New Age Advertising team, our clients' views on cinema media and the full interview with Zsuzsanna Kiss (Cinema City /New Age Media Sales Director) can be found in the latest issue or at the bottom of the page.

Looking globally, how would you describe the year 2023 in cinemas?

- The cinema market is recovering nicely after the Covid period. Hollywood is a huge business, with many participants and constantly changing trends. Last year, after many years, it was not the superhero movies that were the strongest, it was the Barbenheimer phenomenon. Huge crowds of people dressed in pink went to the cinema in the summer, and many watched Barbie and Oppenheimer in the cinemas one after the other, which means nearly 6 hours of cinema! Nothing shows the strength of the previous year in cinema better than the interest in the Oscars. The 96th Academy Awards, held on 10 March 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, had its best attendance in four years. It was watched by an estimated 19.5 million viewers, with Oppenheimer taking the major prizes. It is worth mentioning that there was a Hungarian winner, the Oscar for Visual Design was given to the Poor Things team, including Zsuzsa Mihalek.

How strong was the year in Hungary? Which movies were the most popular in the Hungarian cinemas?

- More than ten percent more people went to the cinema in 2023 compared to the year before, thanks to big hits like Avatar Part 2, Barbie, Oppenheimer and Super Mario. There were also a good number of Hungarian films on the screen, with Semmelweis attracting the most visitors.

The big question for all types of media is how to innovate. There are innovations in cinema, are there any that are essential to ensure that it never goes out of fashion?

-It's been almost 130 years since the Lumière brothers held the first public film screening at the Grand Café at 14 Boulevard des Capucines in Paris on 28 December 1895 - and cinema was born. It has survived both world wars, epidemics, other disasters, and new technological advances (e.g. the download wave), precisely because it has always been able to innovate in terms of content and technology, while retaining its characteristic cinematic feel: community entertainment, fun, relaxed, dramatic, scary, romantic, action-packed, superheroic... The power of community experience will never go out of fashion, and is increasingly appreciated. You can't replicate an Imax, 4DX or ScreenX experience at home, and let's face it, you can't replicate the taste of a cinema popcorn.

Many people say that there is too much advertising on TV, which is disturbing. How are cinema ads perceived nowadays?

- It is interesting to note how much more positive the viewers' attitude is towards cinema advertising, since when they see the well-known TV ads in a cinema environment, they mostly describe them as: lively, youthful, cheerful. It is important that the commercials do not interrupt the movie, so that the quality of the experience is not compromised. We know from our own research that the most disturbing thing for moviegoers is the chair kicking, and the commercials were not even mentioned.

Why do you think it's worth being in the cinema with the commercials? What can it offer that's unique, that streaming can't offer at home?

- In a cinematic twist, we used to say that "size matters" - and for good reason. Because of the size of the cinema screen, advertising practically sits on the retina, with much greater emotional involvement. Not to mention focused attention, which according to the latest retinal scanner research, is 24 seconds. Unlike television consumption habits at home, there is no background noise in the cinema. In fact, going to the cinema is one of the most chosen leisure activities, and cinema advertising is a good indicator that moviegoers are particularly open to what's new as they sit through the opening week of a movie. So, among other things, this is how cinema becomes a really useful media platform for advertising campaigns to launch new products/services, as well as its prominent role in image building.

How have cinema advertising revenues developed in 2023 and in recent years?

- In 2023, we achieved a 20% increase compared to 2022, which represents a HUF 3.4 billion slice of the total media market, and even more excitingly, in 2023 we outperformed our strongest year ever, 2019. If we look back at the trend in cinema advertising revenue, we see that despite the Covid and 2020-2021 cinema closures, cinema advertising revenue has quintupled compared to 2010.

Click here to read the full article: Marketing&Media 2024/03