RELEVANCE OF HYPERLOCAL MARKETING IN CINEMA ADVERTISING

Marketing to a well-defined highly localised set of audience is what hyperlocal marketing is all about. It involves using focused marketing efforts targeted for a TG within a local geographic location. Contrary to what may sound as a new buzz word, hyperlocal marketing has been around for ages, however, it is only recently that this term is gaining popularity in the marketing fraternity. Think of the numerous times when your post box had a leaflet inserted into it featuring an advertisement of a local store. This was nothing but hyperlocal marketing. Going further back, in the age when there was no T.V., radio or internet, merchants had to rely only on hyperlocal marketing in their vicinities.

Personalisation becomes an integral part of hyperlocal marketing. Since your target audience is highly defined and limited, it is possible to personalise your message to suit that subset. Building a large, dedicated, loyal base of local community fans and customers is the key to successful hyperlocal marketing.

In today’s digital age, we expect our smartphones to serve relevant, local results. ‘Near me’, ‘closest’, and ‘nearby’ are common phrases used in our queries on search engines. People are increasingly making critical purchase funnel decisions based on convenience and are averse to travelling long distances to shop. In that light, running a campaign in cinemas which focuses on the products and services in the vicinity plays on the audience’s minds and can play a vital role in increasing the chances of the potential customer zeroing in on that brand for his next purchase.

Cinema advertising has been steadily gaining importance in marketing circles due to the unique advantages it offers. Apart from its more obvious and commonly known advantages, it offers one more unique advantage. Campaigns can be targeted to a demographic profile based on the geographic location of the movie theatre. This makes hyperlocal marketing easily possible. It means that any brand which wants to engage in hyperlocal marketing to a specific niche TG can easily use the cinema medium to do so. This way even a seemingly small sized campaign (in terms of geographical coverage) can draw immensely from the extremely well-defined captive target audience seated in the cinema hall. Plus the brand can enjoy the added advantages of a clutter-free environment, higher receptiveness, larger audio-visual impact and higher ad recall that cinema offers. Also, because movie theatres are located near or in suburban shopping malls and other high-profile retail areas, ads can be positioned close to point-of-purchase.

To sum up, it can be safely said that hyperlocal marketing in cinemas has the potential to work wonders for your brand. All you need is a specialised agency which can provide a sound strategy and possess execution capabilities.