The latest, April issue of the Kreatív Magazin, a monthly professional journal in Hungary, wrote about the advertisers and trends, which currently drive the rarely analysed market of cinema advertising. (Kreatív Magazin, Issue 4, 2018, pp. 54-57) We would like to share with you some of the article’s thoughts we are very proud of.
“The cinema advertising market has been quite busy in the recent years. It is a small segment of the advertising market, but it has been growing for quite some years, together with the number of moviegoers. Data disclosed by the Hungarian Advertising Association show that cinema advertising expenditure had grown significantly by 20 percent from 2014 to 2015; then, one year later, it grew even more rapidly, by 50 percent. Recently disclosed 2017 data show that there was a growth of 4 percent in the last year as well. The fact that the cinema has performed well as an advertising medium recently was driven by the constant expansion of cinema attendance since 2009; the period between 2009 and 2016 saw a total expansion of 50 percent; the last year also saw some of that: almost 750 thousand tickets were sold for the Star Wars movie only, and Kincsem was also a great hit with its 452 thousand tickets.”
In addition, the article provides the ranking of the 10 most-watched cinema films in 2017, compiled by the Association of Hungarian Film Distributors, and the cinema expenditures at list prices between 2013 and 2017, disclosed by Kantar Media.
The advertisement spot is spectacular on the cinema screen
Mr. Tibor Czibik, senior media designer at OMD, said that “Over the recent years, we had an advertising campaign for Renault in the so-called special block before the Star Wars movies at the end of each year. This is a very successful franchise; we are sure that the client’s target number of contacts will be met. The cinema screen is a spectacular interface; it is particularly good for building the image of automotive brands. In the previous years, I have worked on a deodorant brand; its advertising campaign was combined with Fifty Shades of Grey. There are films that have a well-defined target audience; this helps us a lot.”
Ms. Zsuzsanna Kiss, media sales director of Cinema City/New Age Advertising, said: “Superhero and cartoon films are great for brands targeting men; while it is the comedies that perform best in reaching women target groups. Brands, however, try to stay clear of blood; therefore, direct appearance before horror movies is rarely requested. Internationally, there are quite a few clever brand activities for the hit horror movie of last year, It, because younger target groups could be reached effectively with this genre.
Product placement is a good start
We look for brands already in film trailers and contact Hungarian marketers accordingly. If the international headquarters of the brand in question have already had the brand appeared in cinema advertising, then the Hungarian representative will consider the same, even if they have not budgeted any cinema advertising in the same period.
The age of film reel is over
We apply two pricing models: we have a period-based and a contact-based model, where in the latter we settle the accounts with the advertisers based on the audit of each ticket sold. There is no exclusivity when it comes to the cinema screen; irrespective of the brands we have contracts with for off-screen appearance, hall sponsoring or buffet offer, their competitors may also appear among the commercials before the films. Previously, commercials were also on film reels; nowadays, we use digital projectors, which makes our system more flexible and cheaper and the commercial making process has also become faster.”