Cinema advertising, booked locally

Cinema is the only medium where the audience is seated in the dark, facing the screen, unable to skip, and has paid to be there.

The attention premium

Recall rates for cinema advertising are consistently the highest measured in any medium. The reasons are structural: no second screen, no ability to leave, large format, full sound.

That premium is real and it is why cinema costs more per thousand than almost any alternative.

Two very different products

Slide advertising. A static image shown during the pre-show sequence. Cheap, available to local businesses from modest weekly rates, and effective for straightforward local awareness.

Film advertising. A produced spot in the trailer block. Considerably more expensive and requiring production to broadcast standard.

Local businesses frequently do not know the first exists and assume cinema means the second.

Targeting by film

The audience for a children's animation, a horror release and an art-house film have almost nothing in common.

Most cinema packages allow selection by film certificate or by title. That produces targeting a local advertiser cannot achieve elsewhere: a driving school buying the certificate band that matches its audience, or a family attraction buying children's releases.

Production standards

Cinema is unforgiving. A spot that looks acceptable on a phone will look poor at ten metres wide.

For film advertising the production must meet the format's technical requirements, which are stricter than broadcast. Budget accordingly or use slide advertising instead, which requires only a high-resolution image.

The local advantage

For a business near the cinema, the audience is walking past afterwards. That proximity makes the format work in a way that a distant advertiser cannot replicate.

Restaurants, bars, parking, taxi services and late-opening retail all benefit disproportionately, and the message can be specific: how far away, what is open after the film.

Booking

Local cinema advertising is typically sold in four-week blocks by a specialist contractor rather than by the cinema itself. Rates are negotiable, particularly outside the peak release periods.

Ask about the pre-show position. Slides shown early in the sequence, before the auditorium fills, are worth less than those immediately before the trailers.