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Video Advertising

What to expect from cinema advertising in 2015

By Tom Linay, head of film

January 8, 2015 | 4 min read

2015 is set to be a remarkable year for cinema, with a selection of blockbusters unrivalled in recent memory. The Avengers once again assemble, there’s a revitalised Star Wars featuring Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Luke Skywalker, and a certain Mr. Bond makes an appearance too.

As well as those behemoths, there’s Jurassic World, the final Hunger Games film, Fifty Shades of Grey, Fast & Furious 7, Mission: Impossible 5 and Seth Macfarlane’s foul mouthed bear, Ted, is back.

The animation selection has the potential to be the biggest ever too. For the first time, Pixar will be releasing two films in a year, one of which, Inside Out, promises to be its most striking since Up. There’s also a spin-off from 2013’s biggest film Despicable Me 2, with Minions and the titans of Marvel and Disney Animation join forces for the first time with Big Hero 6. Other family titles include live action re-tellings of classic children’s tales, Cinderella, Pan (Peter Pan) and The Jungle Book.

The awards season features a number of titles that can stand toe-to-toe with any selection from recent years. Stunning performances are everywhere you look, from Reese Witherspoon in Wild, Steve Carell in Foxcatcher and Miles Teller in Whiplash. There’s also ambitious projects from cinematic visionaries, including Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu’s Birdman and Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice.

Some of cinemas most revered talents make highly anticipated returns later in the year, including Michael Mann (Blackhat), Steven Spielberg (St. James Place) and Robert Zemeckis (The Walk). If you’re a fan of comedy, the recent huge success of the genre means there’s even more to come in 2015 including new films from Will Ferrell, Melissa McCarthy and Sacha Baron Cohen.

2015 is also set to be an outstanding year for advertising in cinemas too and predictions are that cinema admissions will soar to levels not seen for 40 years. With such a varied range of titles on offer, brands and advertisers will have the opportunity to engage with a number of key consumer demographics through cinema.

In an increasingly fragmented media landscape, cinema still offers a unique experience – one that is reflected in the power of cinema advertising. Our own research with Hall & Partners, 'The Bigger Picture’, shows how adverts on the big screen offer eight times more engagement and three times more brand recall than adverts on television. Brands and agencies understanding the massive potential of tapping into this level of engagement will look to make the creative of their adverts ever more cinematic.

Some of the audiences brands can expect to engage with include:

  • Families, who make up 43 per cent of all UK cinema admissions per year. 2015 sees one of the biggest line ups for this audience for years, including Shaun The Sheep, Minions and Disney Pixar’s Inside Out.
  • 25-44 ABC1 cinemagoers, who make up over 20% of all UK cinema admissions per year. They will have a number of awards-worthy film releases including Whiplash, Foxcatcher, and Richard Curtis’ Trash.
  • 15-34 year olds, 88% of who are cinemagoers. Over half go to the cinema with friends, meaning that brands can reach groups of them at the same time. Taken 3, Fifty Shades of Grey, Fast and Furious 7, Woman in Black: Angel of Death and Mad Max: Fury Road will be big draws for this group.

The growth of technological innovation in cinema will also offer increasingly more touchpoints for reaching cinemagoers and enhancing the cinema experience. Expect beacon tech in-foyer and second screen developments from apps like cinime giving brands the chance to provide interactive content and offers to target consumers.

In our opinion, there's never been a year like it. 2014 saw some truly fantastic big screen content from The Lego Movie and 12 Years A Slave to Guardians Of The Galaxy and Interstellar, but 2015 has the power to eclipse them all.

Tom Linay is head of film at Digital Cinema Media

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