An Evaluation of Cinema Advertising Effectiveness

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of cinema advertising. Specifically: To quantify the proportion of cinema audiences who had an opportunity to see advertising messages screened prior to a movie; to calculate the number of brands recalled by movie goers exposed to advertising messages; and to detail the level of advertisement recognition displayed by movie goers exposed to advertising messages. The findings raise some questions about the effectiveness of cinema advertising. First, a reasonable proportion of the audience was not exposed to any advertising, although this is, arguably, also a characteristic of other media. Second, the low levels of unprompted recall, the vagueness with which respondents recalled some advertisements, and the varying proportions of respondents able to recall any details about the advertising content, raises more questions than it addresses about cinema advertising and its effectiveness. Overall, it seems reasonable to conclude that, while cinema may fulfil a useful role as a support medium, media schedules in which it is the dominant medium may be unable to generate high frequency.