The global cinema advertising market is expected to be worth $4.6 billion this year, representing a 6.8% rise from 2018, which places cinema as the second fastest growing ad medium this year behind the internet.
Despite its small size, cinema’s 0.7% share of global ad spend is expected to be maintained in 2019, according to WARC’s latest Global Ad Trends report. Cinema is therefore the only medium other that the internet not to lose share.
China continues to represent the largest cinema ad market globally with USD $1.8bn expected to be spent this year, contributing 87.4% towards global cinema adspend growth.
The US remains the second largest cinema market, although the medium draws less than half a percent (0.4%) of media budgets on average.
According to UK cinema advertising company DCM, brands should invest a minimum of 2.7% of budgets in cinema, with some sectors like travel & tourism seeing optimal levels of campaign ROI when allocating as much as 11%.
Meanwhile, the rise of online streaming services like Netflix has seen cinema-goers increasingly choose to stay at home instead. Data from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has shown that the amount consumers spend on digital home entertainment, including on online subscriptions, surpassed the amount spent at the cinema globally for the first-time last year, reaching $42.6bn compared to $41.1bn.
However, James McDonald, managing editor at WARC data and author of the research, said: “The experiential nature of cinema places it in a different bracket to SVOD services, which instead occupy a similar space to traditional TV. Coupled with the exclusivity of box office hits, particularly franchises, this should ensure any downward pressure from SVOD services is minimal in the short term.
“Cinema offers advertisers access to younger, more affluent audiences who have an affinity with the medium. This enables ads to be screened in a brand safe environment where they will be noticed, often in a location that is close to a retail outlet and, by extension, a point of purchase.”
Research from Kantar Millward Brown has found that among 16-19 year olds, cinema is the most popular traditional advertising medium, with 59% feeling ‘positive about it’ compared to 34% for print, 38% for TV and 50% for outdoor.
