Cinevolution – creative cinema communications into 2011

Zoe Winterson, associate director at Pearl & Dean, predicts that 2011 will be the year of creative cinema media planning…

This year has been a great one for cinema, with a tremendously diverse range of releases ranging from general appeal, like Toy Story 3, to more cerebral fare such as the Social Network, to big-bang blockbusters like The A Team and The Expendables.

It has been a year which has seen 3D grow from the seeds sown by Avatar into a broader proposition, being employed on films including children’s entertainment by way of The Last Airbender and Voyage of the Dawn Treader to horror shocks in Piranha and the seventh instalment of the Saw franchise. And cinemas have seen a great response from the public.

But what of the year to come? 2011 looks to be just as diverse, if not more so. This year will see a surge in alternative content being showcased through the nation’s cinema screens, so far-flung audiences can have the opportunity to enjoy ballet and opera from their local multiplex. 2011 will even bring the world’s first 3D opera screening, of Carmen, in the early New Year. Fans of teen sensation Justin Bieber will be able to see his first movie in April, which features 3D footage from his largest concert.

To add to this, audiences can look forward to the final instalment of Harry Potter, hotly-tipped British potential award winners The King’s Speech and Never Let Me Go and blockbusters such as Spielberg’s next offering Tintin, the next Twilight, and Captain America, the latest Marvel comic book adaptation.

To many in the media planning industry, cinema still represents a mass medium, something which offers broad scope for reaching large numbers of people with one message. It is not typically associated with targeting. And yet, the very diversity of 2010’s cinema offering and the slate for 2011 shows just how varied the cinema experience can be. Cinema has its own inbuilt targeting system – the audiences themselves, and no two audiences are alike. Just as you would not expect the same ad reel to run in an 18-cert film as in a PG, you would not expect the same audience to attend both films.

The same goes with the audience at an arthouse cinema versus a Leicester Square multiplex. There may be crossover, but the messages which can be conveyed through advertising on the silver screen can be used to pinpoint very specific demographics of the population. On the other hand, films likely to attract large numbers of cinema audiences such as the big summer blockbusters or Disney’s latest offerings, can be used to convey more general messages. Add to this latent targeting the rising power and flexibility of digital and advertisers have incredible potential ahead to target local audiences with bespoke messaging – all in a captive environment where advertising is seen as part of the overall experience rather than an interruption to it.

I predict therefore that 2011 will be the year of creative cinema media planning – the year when marketers harness the breadth of opportunity presented by cinema in pinpointing and communicating with specific audience types. The spread of digital projection means that brands will be able to not only engage with specific target audiences around that cinema’s physical location, but also tailor messaging to the film itself to make the experience much more seamless for the audience.

This alignment of product, medium and audience insight serves to underline one of cinema advertising’s greatest strengths – its scale, and the impact an ad can have when viewed on the big screen in a relaxed frame of mind, ready to be entertained.