CINEMA ADVERTISING ON THE UPSWING

Cinema advertising is one of the fastest growing trends in the advertising space off late. It is a very effective medium to reach your TG in an engaging environment. A unique advantage of cinema advertising is that your audience is captive and highly receptive to the communication on screen. Each week, thousands of people of all ages flock the theaters to enjoy the latest release. Most of the ardent cinema fans prefer being ahead of the game. They prefer to watch movies on the big screen and not on television. Hence, cinema advertising is becoming a more essential, strategic part of the media plan for companies of all sizes.

Cinema has always been one of India’s greatest passions, producing over 900 films each year. The industry easily sells 3.5-4 billion movie tickets each year, which speaks volumes about cinema advertising’s wide reach. A large chunk of India’s 1.2 billion people spend their weekends at the multiplexes or single screen theaters. An added advantage of in-cinema advertising is that it targets audiences with purchasing power.

“While cinema advertising is small, contributing to less than one per cent of total advertising in India, its rate of growth is second to digital at 25 per cent. Last year, the rate of growth of cinema advertising was 20 per cent” — Source – GroupM.

Digitization of single screens, presence of multiplex screens in Tier II and Tier III towns and increasing popularity of Hollywood and regional films in India are expected to fuel the growth of cinema advertising. With digitization, filmmakers are now releasing films simultaneously across thousands of screens. This has led not just to a higher reach across smaller cities, but also an increased demand for regional and Hollywood content. More screens and more movies mean more advertising space for cinema advertising. This refers to on-screen and off-screen branding that consumers see in theaters. In the on-screen space, a brand can run the traditional mute slide, audio slide and Ad film. In the off-screen space, there is a huge variety of options ranging from seats, auditorium door, foyer, 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.

With the growing size of the cinema industry, the lucrativeness of cinema advertising as vouched for by the increasing brand investments in this medium, the developments in technology and the increase in the number of advertising options in cinemas, it comes as no surprise that cinema advertising is on the upswing in India.