Screenvision’s experiential upfront event, entitled Get into the Movies, took the company’s annual presentation out of the expected movie theater setting and into the transformed Skylight at Moynihan Station. To demonstrate the unrivaled impact that only cinema advertising can deliver, Screenvision invited audience members to physically become a part of the movies and interact with three working movie production sets filled with actors, directors, and crew. It was Screenvision’s first upfront since the government rejected National CinemaMedia’s attempt to merge the two companies and the mood was decidedly upbeat.
Screenvision president Travis Reid hosted a press conference prior to the upfront and reported that his company’s sales were 20 percent ahead of 2014 and that he expects this year to be a strong one. Reid noted that the box office is currently up eight percent over last year and he predicted that this could be a year when box office revenues top $11 billion.
Katy Loria, Screenvision’s executive vice president, national advertising sales said this was because cinema advertising offers advertisers things they simply can’t get in any other media outlet. “The movie audience is a very stable audience,” she said, adding that most importantly “our audience sees one hundred percent of the content one hundred percent of the time.” Plus, she added, “They’re young and they hold a lot of purchasing power.”
Asked how long she expected to see cinema advertising enjoy double-digit growth Loria laughed and said, “You can’t ask me that in front of my boss.” Joking aside, she said she anticipates solid growth in cinema advertising to continue for several years to come and pointed to three advertising categories that she believes have yet to be fully tapped: Health & Beauty, Travel & Leisure and Entertainment & Media.
During the upfront event, Screenvision announced the roll out of Project Lynx, a strategic big data and insights initiative to bolster audience targeting. The initiative will integrate behavioral data yielding new insights beyond age and gender to create a powerful ad-targeting tool. Screenvision is offering select agencies and brands an opportunity to become early participants of Project Lynx to help shape, build, and customize the offering to best suit their needs. The announcement was officially made at the Company’s upfront event at the Skylight at Moynihan Station.
Project Lynx is a powerful combination of third-party consumer purchase data, as well as data collected through mobile technology, including geo-fencing and beacons. Screenvision will be working with a third-party market research and data insights leader to provide the base layer of consumer data. Screenvision also announced an alliance with mobile leader, Sito Mobile, which will collect information on movie goers through its state-of-the-art geo-fencing mobile data management platform. Screenvision will use this combined data to develop insights that further reinforce precision on-screen targeting, as well as use Sito’s technology to enable advertisers to extend engagement with moviegoers by retargeting messaging to their devices once they leave the theater.
Screenvision’s audience targeting also now enables advertisers to reach a more potent concentration of their key demographic by matching movies to audiences based on titles, not solely MPAA ratings. This is done through precision targeting using Nielsen Cinema Audience Report and Screenvision’s proprietary campaign management system.
“The powerful combination of cinema’s impact paired with these new targeting capabilities enables Screenvision to better reach a brand’s intended target,” said Loria. “All screens are not created equal. Screenvision directly addresses the issues of viewability and audience demographics, while delivering a customizable platform.”
While TV ratings continue to decline, cinema has shown stability and is expected to have the biggest box office ever in 2015 with a powerful slate of blockbuster films for 2016. This content viewed on a 40-foot screen in an unskippable environment, ensures brand messages are impacting key audiences – an audience with deep purchasing power. Additionally, research has shown that audiences are connecting with ads shown in cinema. According to Lieberman Research Group, moviegoers had 59 percent ad recall and were 79 percent likely to purchase a brand, and 76 percent more likely to recommend a brand after seeing it in movie theaters.
“Advertisers today find it increasingly difficult to break through and reach their desired target. Between fragmentation, an oversupply of inventory and dwindling audiences, success can no longer be measured by impressions,” said Loria. “Impact is the new currency, and Screenvision has the right audience, environment, platform, and content to provide the highest impact for brand messaging in the industry.”
As a direct response to brands’ increased investment and interest in content marketing, Screenvision announced a new preshow platform available exclusively to upfront advertisers - Front & Center ON. The new platform offers brands a powerful showcase to share their own branded content. Advertisers will be integrated into a preshow as programming partners, and will be given category exclusivity rights within the preshow, flexibility for placement and length, as well as opportunities for targeting, research, and reaching moviegoers outside the theater. Front & Center ON will be offered in the Upfront starting June 1.
“We are acutely aware of the investment that brands make in storytelling, and we believe that we have always had the best storytelling platform,” said John McCauley, executive vice president, chief marketing officer & strategic alliances, Screenvision. “Our research indicates that when ads are combined with content in our preshow, there is a great increase in key brand measures like purchase intent, likability and ad recall. We are very pleased to offer what we consider to be the most robust content platform in media to reach a highly coveted audience.”
Screenvision’s creative studio, 40 Foot Solutions, will continue to innovate and produce industry leading branded content solutions for brands that do not have their own content. Additionally, Screenvision has deepened its relationships with studios to offer unique ways to connect brands with upcoming blockbuster films. Capabilities include co-branded promotions and integrated long-form content.
The upfront event was produced by Empire Entertainment, and a showcase of the upcoming movie slate was produced by Screenvision programming partner, @Hollywood. 40 Foot Solutions produced other on-screen elements for the show, and Christie Digital provided interactive, user-driven video walls throughout the event space.
Screenvision http://www.screenvision.com
Sito Mobile www.sitomobile.com