MovieAdvertising

That will be Seven Dollars for a Movie and Commercials


In the beginning was The Film. Hollywood made The Film and what it brought in at the box office was all there was. Then came foreign film rights. Then came TV. And first run rights for new feature films during prime time on the networks. Then came residuals for late night TV and all other hours for not-so-new films. Cable evolved and Pay for TV naturally followed. The VCR worried Hollywood but it soon learned to make more money from renting and selling cassettes (and later DVDs) than in many cases the feature film made at the box off itself. Licensing rights and product rights from fast food companies and toy manufacturers followed. Hollywood learned and learned well how to milk the movie for all its worth.

During the nineties, Hollywood discovered product placement, a form of advertising in which marketers pay to have a product shown during the film. If the story line says the character has to eat at a restaurant, sell the rights to a restaurant chain so their restaurant is the one prominently shown. And so on with everything from any food item imaginable to vehicles to even resorts. You can tell if it is a product placement if the camera focuses lovingly on the brand for any length of time.

Not satisfied with the revenues from all the sources above and having milked product placement for about everything possible (watch some modern films and at times they appear to be one long infomercial with a thin plot holding the commercials together), a new source of revenues has been making its debut slowly across the nation. This commercial endeavor does not even pretend to be art.

Theaters are beginning to show more and more commercials at the beginning of the show. Now everyone is accustomed to seeing the typical promos for Soft drinks and Popcorn from the refreshment stand, static ads for Joe’s Coffeeshop (Visit us after the show, show your receipt and get 10% off), and those entertaining and excitement filled movie trailers for six to ten upcoming (or being shown on other screens of the same complex) films. No, we’re used to that. It bothers us but that’s part of the experience. No these commercials are mainstream thirty second or sixty second spots that you normally would see on TV.

If this were Europe, such exposures would be expected and the audience would shrug it off and wait for the main feature. But this is the good old USA. We are paying six, eight, sometimes ten dollars per ticket during prime time to watch a first run feature film. And now the theater owners wants us to play captive audience while they show upwards of ten minutes of traditional commercials. Moviegoers expect paid advertising for TV, magazines, and newspapers, as they subsidize the costs of the media. But there is a major difference between free TV and a ten dollar movie ticket. These commercials have been increasing in time and number shown over the past few years. For those theaters subjecting their viewers to them, ten minutes is not unusual for pure unadulterated advertisement prior to the start of the feature film. If that were not enough, one chain has decided to mandate a whopping twenty minutes of commercials preceding the start time of the feature.

If the theater owners want us to watch twenty minutes of commercials prior to their films, many theater goers (myself included) would simply walk out and demand back their money. Now if they wish to open the theater for free to anyone who wants to see the feature film but first must watch twenty minutes of commercials, that is a different proposition. However, the theater owners and the movie moguls must remember that theirs is not the only show in town and that they are competing against all other entertainment options for the dollars of their viewers. Their customers may well decide they could stay home and save ten dollars while they watch twenty minutes of commercials.

Treating one’s customer with such disdain is not a healthy means to create a relationship with one’s customers, unless, of course, the relationship is deliberately meant to be hostile and the company has suicidal tendencies