|
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Preshow Advertisements (Trailers & Commercials) Are Too Long
|
Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001
|
posted 01-19-2012 11:35 AM
Fox News
quote: Fox News
The time a movie is scheduled to start and the time it actually begins seem to be getting further apart. Take this story from a frustrated moviegoer who saw “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” in New Jersey over the weekend.
“The show time was 1:10 p.m., but the movie started sometime after 1:40,” he said. “There were lots of trailers mixed with advertisements for the theater and IMAX. Every time we thought it was over it, it just kept going.”
And he’s not the only one who’s complaining.
“Movie theater ads are out of control and history hasn’t been kind to businesses that insult their customers,” said Los Angeles-based media expert Michael Levine. “The experience of going to movie theaters today is, frankly, insulting. By the time the film starts, I am annoyed and exhausted.”
“In the age of TiVo, people are less and less comfortable with being bombarded by commercial messages,” Levine continued. “They prefer to sit at home in a more comfortable environment with their big screen TVs. Cinema numbers are declining because people no longer find the experience appealing.”
There’s no denying that attendance is down. In 2010 sales were off 5.2 percent from the previous year, and in 2011 the numbers fell a further 4.7 percent. Could it be that the ever-evolving number of ads and trailers are detracting from the cinema experience?
“One ad is too many as far as cinemagoers are concerned,” says Rob Weiner, movie librarian at Texas Tech University. “People get really annoyed with the ads and just make fun of them. I, too, am fed up with having to sit through ads; they don’t work anymore, as people simply hate them.”
Well, not everyone.
“I actually don’t mind sitting through a few ads; it gives me more time to find parking, use the bathroom, buy popcorn or chat with friends in the lobby if I need to,” San Jose-based publicist Angie Meyer said. “But sitting through them is fine, too. They’re usually interesting and different from what is on television, and I love the excitement and anticipation going into the trailers.”
But if you’re easily annoyed by watching what you didn’t pay to see, you may also want to rethink turning up early. An Arbitron study found that moviegoers arrive 24 to 28 minutes before previews begin, paving the way for theaters to show behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and trivia for 20 minutes before the movie’s scheduled start time, which is when the commercials and trailers begin.
There are no official surveys that measure whether ads and trailers have increased in recent years, but in 2010, the most recent year for which figures are available, cinema advertising revenues increased 12.7 percent from 2009. A 30-second spot can run as high as $2.5 million. Movie attendance is also the primary factor that determines the price of cinema advertising; thus seasonal trends in blockbuster releases often drive rates higher during holiday weekends. And the closer to the movie starting time, the more expensive the ad time.
But Bryan Jefferies, marketing director for the Cinemark theater chain, said there are only a set number of spots available for advertisers,and while that number hasn’t necessarily decreased, it hasn’t increased either.
“Two years ago, there was mild objection about the length of ads and trailers, but that seems to have passed and it isn’t a big deal anymore,” Jefferies said. “People expect it now, and have either adjusted or plan around it. He noted that at least in the case of Cinemark , each theater across the country has the same fixed number of pre-show ads. “Lots of people come for, and really enjoy, the pre-show. Advertisers take advantage of that and create unique, interesting spots and put fresh ideas in front of people. We don’t get calls of complaint like we used to.”
Over the years, some lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully to force theater owners to advertise movies’ real start times. In 2005 Connecticut state Rep. Andrew Fleischmann proposed a law that would have made it mandatory for movie theaters in the state to advertise the actual start times. The proposal never made it past committee.
Theater owners argue that even though ticket prices continue to rise, advertising revenue is crucial to keeping the industry alive.“It is part of the theater business model; cinemas already pay a large amount of money to studios just to play the film, so there are very few revenue streams for the actual theater. You have got to have money coming back in,” Jefferies said.
According to Mark Mitchell, president and chairman of the Cinema Advertising Council, the “youthful, socially connected, pop culture-loving” profile of the moviegoer is particularly attractive to companies and corporations who actively seek out those pre-movie ad spots.
“Connecting with that audience in a distraction-free, dark theater using a 40-foot screen and surround sound is like no other medium,” he explained. “Moviegoers are also in the mindset that is receptive to the experience. Research shows that someone shown the same ad on TV and in a cinema likes the commercial 10 times better when viewed at the movies!”
For several years, the Captive Motion Picture Audience of America (CMPAA) has devoted itself to eliminating what it calls the “invasive” advertising techniques used by movie theaters, which it claims takes away from what going to the movies should be all about. CMPAA encourages audience members to contact theater owners to convey their distaste for pre-movie commercials and to support commercial-free theaters.
Or . . . if worse comes to worst …
“Shout out ‘no commercials!’ or something more witty,” CMPAA advises on its website. “No need for a tirade, just make your dissatisfaction known.”
I personally agree. The length of many circuit's pre-show is out of control. At today's prices, I find it offensive to be forced to watch commercials. Further, while I enjoy trailers, 30 minutes of them is way too many even for me. I sometimes feel that the circuits want me to stay home.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 01-19-2012 12:45 PM
IMHO, all the TV commercial style ads (any ad that isn't a movie trailer) need to be on the pre-pre-show, before the advertised start time. With so many movie theaters now equipped with digital projection I see no excuse for them to do otherwise. I'll arrive at the theater at least a good 10-15 minutes before the show begins in order to claim a good seat. I don't like watching another several minutes of TV commercials after the start time. There's still another 15-20 minutes worth of movie trailers set to play.
The large number of ads and trailers does not go over well with audiences. On MANY occasions I have observed audience members become increasingly irritated as more and more trailers play. By the time the pre-show gets to the last 1 or 2 trailers I'll literally hear people groaning, shifting around in their seats and muttering things like, "Aw c'mon, man" or "Jesus Christ, another one?" I've even heard people yell out, "start the damned movie already!"
Add to this the still in effect policy from Hollywood of making movie trailers and TV commercials louder than the feature. "Digital" apparently didn't solve that problem.
Some theater chains, such as Warren Theaters, advertise the fact they run a minimal amount of movie trailers and no TV commercial style ads. If I go to a show at the Warren Moore 14 and arrive early, I'll get seated facing a closed curtain with a Warren Theaters logo projected on it. No dimmer than standard video projection of countless TV commercials and trivia ads. When the curtain opens they play their standard policy snipes, a couple movie trailers and then start the movie.
As to whether the large number of trailers and commercials are convincing some people to stay at home, I think the situation is more complicated than that. There are numerous negative factors one can encounter when watching a movie in a commercial movie theater. A half hour of commercials and trailers is just one of that negative factors. Discourteous audience members playing with phones and doing other things to disrupt the show is, I believe, the biggest problem. Cost is a factor at least for some people. Lack of quality showmanship in many big chain theaters is another problem.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Melanie Loggins
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 154
From: Wayne, NE, USA
Registered: Aug 2011
|
posted 01-19-2012 02:42 PM
We play three trailers. Maybe four but that's rare. I have the occasional customer who comes in late and has missed 10 minutes of the movie because they have been trained by big theatres to show up late so they don't have to sit through the commercials and trailers. I figure, eventually, we'll have everyone trained to get here one time. (The fact that we've been selling out about 1/3 of our shows lately is actually training people to show up early.)
We recently decided to visit a multiplex. The kids had never been to a big theatre and we had a whole day on our hands. So we went to see a movie that I was actually going to be showing in 4 days! Anyway, I could rant about the prices of tickets and concession;, the stale popcorn; the fact that even though the tickets went on sale 30 minutes before the show you couldn't go sit down until 5 minutes before, leaving us in their lame lobby with two kids and stale popcorn for 20 minutes; the fact that the house wasn't clean even though we couldn't sit for 20 minutes because they had to "clean"; the movie being out of focus and shooting onto the masking; the sound only being in the front; the broken seat.... No, what pissed me off the most was the 3 commercials and 6 trailers, one of which was completely inappropriate for the family movie we were about to watch. I had been waiting for almost half an hour and I still had to wait another 20 minutes?!? Uh uh. So I came home with a renewed resolve to have a clean, cheap theatre that looks and sounds perfect.... and that only has 7.5 minutes of trailers at the front.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 01-22-2012 11:59 AM
You mean that there are places that make a regular practice of showing commercials between trailers and the feature film? That's insane. Landmark did it once when they were paid a huge amount of money to show an American Express commercial (with Martin Scorsese in it) in that slot, and it just ruined the entire flow of the program.
For those who _must_ show commercials, the only acceptible program order to me is commercials->trailers->feature. Otherwise, there is no clear distinction between movie trailers and advertisements for other products. As a viewer, this type of unanticipated context-switching would leave me irritated.
Obviously, the real solution is to get rid of commercials entirely.
I can sort of tolerate slide advertising, as it does not make noise and is not quite as attention-grabbing as film ads, but I am sure that the film ads generate significantly more revenue (at least in the short term...over the long term, they cause people to stay home instead of going out to movies). The worst part about all forms of screen advertising is that it hurts the industry as a whole, including the theatres which do not show screen ads.
I also do not understand why anyone would show more than 3-4 trailers at most. A trailer reel that is longer than that would have the effect of annoying viewers and would also reduce the chances that viewers might remember trailers that they saw for films that interested them. After about four trailers, the whole thing just becomes a big muddled mess in my mind (and that of other people I know). Better to show fewer trailers and make sure that viewers remember what they saw (so that they can possibly buy tickets for those films later).
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
Printer-friendly view of this topic