Lights, Camera, Impact – Cinema Advertising vs. TV, Online Video and Social Ads

After the pandemic, the film industry is booming again. Many moviegoers have returned to the theatres, and box office records have been broken around the world. More people are therefore now exposed to movie-theatre advertising again.

How do movie lovers perceive such advertising and how does it compare to other advertising channels such as TV, online video, and social advertising? How can you create memorable cinema commercials with the right impact on brand and message recall? And which movie ad performs the best in DVJ’s long-running cinema benchmark?

These and other questions are addressed in this article based on a large number of pre-tests of 150 cinema commercials conducted in collaboration with Jean Mineur Mediavision, the largest Dutch cinema advertising operator.

GEN-Z FINDS ITS WAY TO THE MOVIE THEATERS BEST

People of all ages returned to movie theatres with a noticeable increase in reach over the last year. Yet, Gen-Z actually outperformed all other generations in terms of visits in the previous year, with reach among this group (aged 16 to 23) almost doubling between 2021 and 2022!

Figure 1: Reach of Dutch movie theatres by age

PRE-TESTING TO PREDICT AND IMPROVE IMPACT 

Our cinema pre-testing database, based on the long-term cooperation between DVJ Insights and Jean Mineur Mediavision, consists of more than 150 cinema advertisements from global brands like Samsung, Heineken, Rituals, Phillips, Unilever, McDonald’s, ALDI, and IKEA that were tested among over 21,000 moviegoers.

With a high predictive value, DVJ’s Ad Reality pre-test uses a variety of implicit and explicit research techniques to assess the effects of a cinema commercial following natural, in-context exposure taking into account how consumers actually engage with the medium and advertising.

Figure 2: A selection of global and local brands included in the  database by DVJ Insights in collaboration with Jean Mineur Mediavision

Pre-testing cinema advertisements provides information about the ads‘ performance in terms of brand and message recall; whether they are able to develop positive and distinctive associations; how they are evaluated on different aspects (such as brand fit, relevance, credibility, activation) as well as on a moment-to-moment scenes perspective. Further analysis provided insights on buying intention, the degree to which people are willing to share their own experience, to which moment-to-moment scenes viewers respond more or less favourably and whether the ad is able to activate the brand in consumers‘ minds.

All these insights can be used to understand and improve the performance of (cinema) advertising and even predict in-market success based on all information in our comprehensive benchmark. Additionally, we can compare the impact of cinema advertising with other media such as TV, online video and social advertising, in a broad sense as well as specifically on Gen-Z (as their attention is more challenging to capture).

AD AVOIDANCE IN EUROPE

Before discussing the effectiveness of cinema in comparison to other channels, it’s important to be aware that consumer attitudes are generally negative towards advertising. In the Netherlands, advertising is presented with a particularly difficult challenge since 87% of people simply do not like commercials. As shown in the figure, dramatically, Gen-Z is even less positive about advertising compared to Millenials and Gen-X.

Figure 3: Attitude towards the advertising based on country and generations

For some marketers who are passionate about telling their stories, this negative attitude is still surprising, resulting in less attention and consequently less impactful than desired. Furthermore, we know that Gen-Z shows much worse brand recall (after being exposed to advertising) than those over 35 years of age (source: DVJ Insights‘ pre-testing database across different advertising channels), making this a particularly challenging group.

Brand recall is considered an important KPI, and it is thus reliant on attention, which is dependent on the platform. For example, TV ads are zapped away most often within 10 seconds, printed ads are scanned in less than 2 seconds, social media ads have an average in-view time of only 1.8 seconds, and skippable online videos often being clicked away as soon as possible. In sum, gaining attention for your advertisement is crucial for brand and message recall, this is even more challenging for Gen-Z and it depends on the creative execution and the media channel.

CREATIVE QUALITY AS AN IMPORTANT DRIVER OF SUCCESS

The effectiveness of a campaign, in Mark Ritson’s opinion, depends on creative development, outpacing synergies of multimedia effects and budget setting. In fact, with limited budgets, your creatives need to stand out so you can allow yourself to spend less on media and still achieve the same effectiveness, says Caroline van Turennout – Director of Marketing & E-commerce at Zeeman in the Brand Growth interview with DVJ Insights.

The importance of creative quality cannot be overstated. Iterative pre-testing of all relevant campaign assets guarantees improved creative quality for all markets and channels (by transforming an average ad into a top 20% performer). It also serves a multiplier effect of creative quality on campaign efficiency with an (actual) 600 GRP campaign being worth 100 GRPs more in terms of effectiveness, on average.

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE COMMERCIALS IN CINEMA COMPARED TO OTHER CHANNELS?

It may appear that capturing the attention of moviegoers is an easy task because they are fully exposed (and relaxed) right before the film begins, but if your ad is not perceived positively, it won´t yield an impact.

So what happens next? Cinema surpasses advertising on television, online video, and social media (social advertising taken as an index 100) in the DVJ Insights cross-channel pre-testing database in terms of positive and distinctive associations (index of 139 and 138, respectively) evoked by the ad, as well as viewer´s enjoyment (index of 112).

Figure 4: Performance of advertising on different channels and its effect on brand recall

Even though brand building is often one of the main goals, cinema advertising also performs well in terms of activation, scoring the same on purchase intent as social (index 100) and significantly better than television (index 62)!

Figure 5: Performance of advertising on different channels and its effect on activation

Yet, what about brand impact? A meta-analysis found that the brand impact dimensions are the most important predictors of in-market effect, and unaided brand recall and claimed message recall in particular. These are thus, the most important KPIs and should in principle always be maximized, i.e. aim for the top 20% for an ad to be especially effective.  Interestingly, cinema as a channel outperforms here as you can see in the figure below.

Figure 6: Performance of advertising on different channels and its effect on brand impact

 CONNECTING WITH GEN-Z THROUGH CINEMA ADVERTISING

Gen-Z, as an even more demanding audience, rates cinema ads lower on distinctiveness, excitement, and enjoyment than those of non-Gen-Z viewers. On the other hand, both groups exhibit high levels of brand impact and association build-up, highlighting overall effectiveness. This makes cinema a unique channel to effectively reach Gen-Z consumers, as we don’t see it “underperforming” among this age group as we see for channels such as TV.

Figure 7: The effects of cinema advertising on brands & associations across generations

BEST-PERFORMING AD: THE SUMMER IS ABOUT SHARING

What cinema ad performs the best in DVJ’s long-running cinema benchmark of around 150 advertisements?

When it comes to performance, McDonald’s advertisement “The Summer is about Sharing” clearly outperforms the cinema benchmark. In the advertisement, Marit, a young woman from the Dutch island of Texel, plans a family vacation with her father on a converted fishing boat. She meets a city girl named Lotte, to whom she teaches all the fun and unique things about Texel and the island’s charms that aren’t found on the mainland. Lotte, on the other hand, surprises her by giving her something that is not available on the island.

Figure 8: Snippet of McDonald´s successful commercial

The advertisement scores above the cinema benchmark consisting of 150 ads in terms of brand recall (both aided and unaided), clarity of the message, and brand impact. Furthermore, with 69% of positive and distinct associations, it also outperforms our benchmark and is perceived, as expressed in the open-ended answers, as “A feel-good story showing the value of sharing McDonald’s with your loved ones.” and “ It’s all about connection with others, which McDonald’s can help you with.”

In addition, the spot is one of the ten Ster Gouden Loeki quarterly winners, with an opportunity to win the Ster Gouden Loeki 2023.

Why do people find this commercial appealing? Some responses reveal:

“Nice storyline of the girls running into each other is well thought out” 

“The feeling that it really is love and is actually shared.”