CINEMA ADVERTISING CELEBRATING 6 STRAIGHT YEARS OF RECORD GROWTH

By Toni Fitzgerald
Jun 16, 2009

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Media_economy_57/One_of_the_few_bright_spots_Cinema_ads.asp

It was a down year for nearly every form of advertising, with everything from magazines to outdoor taking a hit in 2008.

A notable exception was cinema advertising, which recorded its sixth straight year of growth, up 5.8 percent over 2007, from $539.9 million to $571.4 million, according to the Cinema Advertising Council.

Spending on the medium has increased by 208 percent since 2002, the first year it was measured.

In 2008 the bulk of the money, just over 90 percent, was spent on on-screen advertising versus advertising elsewhere in the theater. That’s down slightly from 92 percent the previous year.

National or regional advertisers accounted for 77 percent of sales.

Driving that growth is improved technology, which now enables advertisers to swap out and update creative digitally at the flip of a switch across hundreds of theaters.

That’s made cinema advertising that much more attractive to marketers, especially national brands.

While the media economy overall fell 2.8 to 4 percent during 2008, depending on whose figures you believe, cinema advertising still pulled in new advertisers.

“We started digitizing seven years ago, and that made it easier for advertisers who had never explored cinema before to start using it,” says Dave Kupiec, president and chairman of the CAC.

Under the old technology, creative had to be distributed to individual theaters in the form of film. On-screen advertising was sold in four-week chunks, which essentially precluded marketers who wanted to advertise a limited-time promotion, like a weekend sale.

It was also cost-prohibitive, with a short spot running up to $300,000 to produce.

“Digital changed that. They can swap an ad out any time in the flight,” Kupiec says. “And there are no film costs. Say someone sends in a two-minute videotape. We can put it up via satellite and send it to 18,000 movie screens.”

Kupiec says cinema advertising saw some of its biggest growth in the retail area this year because of that technology, with advertisers such as Kohl’s and Sears coming in for the first time in recent years.

Off-screen advertising, of the sort you see in movie theater lobbies, also saw some growth due to new interactive technologies, such as posters that send messages to passersby’s cell phones.

“The thing that’s getting attention is mobile applications, what to do with cell phones with touch screens, and 3D screens,” Kupiec says. “It’s technology that becomes new and exciting, captivating media. We find we’re getting a lot of requests for that sort of thing.”

Automotive remained one of the top ad categories in 2008, with Asian automakers spending especially heavily. Other top categories included television, consumer packaged goods, credit cards, fashion and movie studios.

Still, whether the ad spending growth will continue into what’s been a dismal start to the year for all media remains to be seen.

“The reality of this economy is that no matter how good cinema is, the number of contracts we’re writing is still increasing, but the amount we’re writing per contract is down versus prior years,” Kupiec says. “We know the economy is in the dumper for a year or so. That doesn’t mean we’ve lost momentum, it just means we’ve lost some money.”

CAC members account for 82 percent of the nearly 39,000 U.S. movie screens.

About Hollywood Branding:

Hollywood Branding, started in 2001, works with 30 marketing companies to provide a simple, stress-free avenue to research and run ad campaigns on movie theaters nationwide.

Our database includes every cinema in the U.S. that offers any kind of advertising opportunity on-screen or in the lobby.  We offer free planning, rates, research, and media buying expertise.

Some of our clients include Disney, US Army, the Food & Drug Administration, the state of VA, the city of Los Angeles, the FL Health Department, the state of OR, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, eBay, and the National Crime Commission.

Email Beverly Nation : hollywoodbranding@gmail.com

or call:      314-776-1018

www.HollywoodBranding.com

FOX TO BUY 3-D GLASSES FOR ICE AGE

Fox to buy 3-D glasses for ‘Ice Age’ – Los Angeles Times

Posted: 20 Jun 2009 08:53 AM PDT

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2009/06/fox-paying-for-ice-ages-3d-glasses-but-the-issue-remains-.html

Fox to buy 3-D glasses for ‘Ice Age’

The studio had threatened to make theater chains pay the costs, which can easily add $10 million to a successful film’s release.

20th Century Fox’s high-profile stare-down with exhibitors over who would pay for digital 3-D glasses to go with ‘Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs‘ has been settled. But the issues underlying the dispute will almost certainly flare up again.

Fox, which had initially threatened to make theater owners bear the costs, has agreed to pick up the tab, according to several people familiar with the matter.”

In the past, studios have paid 75 cents to $1 per moviegoer for disposable glasses. That can easily add as much as $10 million to the cost of a successful film’s release. This factor empowers muliti-use glasses solutions like XpanD or Dolby that eliminate this cost.

It’s a sore point for studios, which complain that they shouldn’t have to pay that fee, particularly because theaters can reuse glasses. The studios are already incurring additional costs of about $15 million a picture to make a movie in 3-D. Tickets for 3-D movies come with a $2 to $3 surcharge, which is split between theater owners and studios.

Fox was the first studio whose concerns became public, when word got out during the ShoWest film industry trade show in March that it was pressuring exhibitors to pay for the glasses to go with “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” which comes out July 1 and is the studio’s first 3-D movie. Theater chains balked, with Regal, the nation’s biggest, threatening to play the movie in 2-D only.

With nearly 50 3-D movies due out in the next two years, the issue of who will pay for 3-D glasses is hardly settled.

Fox is expected to keep pressuring theaters to pick up the tab and push for them to reuse the glasses. The studio has ample incentive: In December it will release James Cameron’s 3-D sci-fi action movie “Avatar,” the director’s first major film since 1997’s “Titanic.”

About Hollywood Branding:

Hollywood Branding, started in 2001, works with 30 marketing companies to provide a simple, stress-free avenue to research and run ad campaigns on movie theaters nationwide.

Our database includes every cinema in the U.S. that offers any kind of advertising opportunity on-screen or in the lobby.  We offer free planning, rates, research, and media buying expertise.

Some of our clients include Disney, US Army, the Food & Drug Administration, the state of VA, the city of Los Angeles, the FL Health Department, the state of OR, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, eBay, and the National Crime Commission.

Email Beverly Nation : hollywoodbranding@gmail.com

or call:      314-776-1018

www.HollywoodBranding.com

A POLITICAL MESSAGE AMID THE MOVIE TRAILERS

U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform

Howard Weiss and Kelly Reed, whose pool supply store was sued by a woman who had fallen.

BY:  ELIZABETH OLSON

Published: June 3, 2009

WWW.NYTIMES.COM

INSTEAD of the latest on Hollywood stars, moviegoers may get a dose of advocacy this month when they settle into their seats for the feature presentation.

U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform

Mike Carter, whose gasket business in Louisiana is grappling with 100 asbestos lawsuits.

Coming to theaters are commercials that are intended to spell out the perils of frivolous lawsuits as told by “everyday Americans,” including small-business owners who have been hit with costly lawsuits they believed were arbitrary and abusive.

The owner of a pool supply store in Rockville, Md., tells of being sued for $750,000 by a passer-by who fell and was injured after being startled by a wild Canada goose nesting near his store. A gasket maker in Monroe, La., narrates how he is grappling with 100 asbestos lawsuits, and a Colorado couple describe how their family was sued for $75,000 after their 7-year-old son struck a fellow skier.

The series of two-minute trailers is the latest salvo in a long-running political battle over whether there should be curbs on bringing civil lawsuits. President George W. Bush often criticized what he called “junk lawsuits,” but trial lawyers fought back, citing research by the RAND Institute and other groups that as few as 2 percent of injured people file lawsuits.

The United States Chamber of Commerce, which represents three million businesses, is hoping this “Faces of Lawsuit Abuse” ad campaign, from its Institute for Legal Reform, can revitalize interest in restricting litigation. The tales, now running on radio, television and the Internet, will appear on the big screen for audiences in Washington, D.C., and in Colorado and Louisiana. The plan is to then expand to theaters nationwide.

“The silver screen is a perfect place to tell stories,” said Lisa Rickard, the institute’s president, “but these aren’t fiction. They are true stories of people who have been victimized. We want people to realize that this is not a lottery system where you might hit the jackpot, but that these lawsuits have very real consequences.”

The idea for the commercials came to Ms. Rickard as she and her husband were watching on-screen ads at a local movie theater. She recalls thinking that “instead of some of the rinky-dink stuff we were seeing, this was a great chance to educate people.”

A handful of other organizations and government agencies have bought ad slots before movies. Groups like the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association have run issue or brand awareness ads or commercials in theaters.

“This is the first time we’ve looked at movie trailers as a way to present an issue,” said Will Feltus, senior vice president for research at National Media Inc., which bought the lawsuit campaign’s media time. The company, based in Alexandria, Va., was a media buyer for the 2004 Bush re-election campaign.

Mr. Feltus acknowledged being skeptical about such trailers because “they are a bit outside of the box,” but said that data from Scarborough Research, a major market research group, found that people who closely followed political issues were “well above average” in their moviegoing habits.

“About 50 percent are more likely to go to the movies six or more times a month,” he said. Also, movies are attracting bigger audiences, with box office results up 15 percent this year over 2008.

And 90 percent of audiences prefer preshow entertainment and advertising over a blank screen, according to E-Poll, a market research firm whose data is used by National CineMedia, which sells and places advertisements for Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment Inc., Cinemark Holdings and other theaters.

The message of the institute’s movie theater commercials is “hard-hitting,” said Cliff Marks, National CineMedia’s president for sales and marketing. “This isn’t making any bones about it. It’s not a warm and fuzzy message, but one that says: ‘you need to know there is a problem.’ ”

The ads also are staking out new advertising ground, because the campaign plans to go national and because of the ads’ longer running time, Mr. Marks said. “Such ads, which we call branded entertainment, are usually 30 or 60 seconds long. The lawsuit promotion is a longer form, and costs more to produce and buy the time,” he said.

The institute declined to disclose its budget for the campaign, but Mr. Marks said it would cost at least $1 million, and perhaps as much as $4 million, to place ads in its 1,325 theaters across the country.

The campaign is not pushing any specific legislation, but Joanne Doroshow, executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy, a consumer advocacy group, said the chamber was trying to fend off legislative changes to mandatory arbitration clauses.

“They want to make sure that consumers don’t have the right to go to court when there are disputes in consumer contracts like health insurance, credit cards or mortgages,” she said.

Ms. Rickard said the institute would gauge the effectiveness of its campaign from the response to its Web site, facesoflawsuitabuse.org.

As it plans to expand the campaign nationally, the institute is looking for new participants from the “hundreds of stories we get on our Web site,” said Bryan Quigley, a spokesman for the group.

Ms. Rickard said the public needed to be educated about such lawsuits because cases like the one involving the nesting goose were costly to business owners.

But Patrick Malone, former president of the Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington, said the chamber was omitting “key facts that made these and other cases nonfrivolous.”

The goose at the center of the lawsuit “was not a wild creature, but a pet because they were feeding it,” Mr. Malone said. Campaigns like those from Ms. Rickard’s group amount “to mass tampering with the jury pool so they look at any plaintiff with a skeptical and jaundiced eye,” he said.

About Hollywood Branding:

Hollywood Branding, started in 2001, works with 30 marketing companies to provide a simple, stress-free avenue to research and run ad campaigns on movie theaters nationwide.

Our database includes every cinema in the U.S. that offers any kind of advertising opportunity on-screen or in the lobby.  We offer free planning, rates, research, and media buying expertise.

Some of our clients include Disney, US Army, the Food & Drug Administration, the state of VA, the city of Los Angeles, the FL Health Department, the state of OR, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, eBay, and the National Crime Commission.

Email Beverly Nation : hollywoodbranding@gmail.com

or call:      314-776-1018

www.HollywoodBranding.com