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Regal and Cinemark agree to play commercials in the middle of movie trailers (1 Viewer)

Wayne_j

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https://deadline.com/2019/09/regal-...lms-under-national-cinemedia-pact-1202736817/

"
Under a new agreement with major in-theater advertising firm National CineMedia, top exhibitors Regal and Cinemark will incorporate advertising just prior to the “attached” trailers before feature films.

But AMC, the No. 1 U.S. circuit, has come out strongly against the plan.

The pact starts November 1 and will designate a single 30- or 60-second ad as a “platinum spot.” That ad will play immediately before the “attached” one or two trailers right before the feature. (Customarily, the studio distributing the feature “attaches” one or two trailers for its upcoming titles.)"

"“In April of this year, NCM proposed this concept to AMC of commencing a platinum advertising position during the end of trailer play, which AMC flatly rejected at the time because of AMC’s concerns that U.S. moviegoers would react quite negatively to the concept,” the company said. “AMC has no plan to introduce commercial advertising close to the start of a movie’s commencement at its theatres in the United States, nor does AMC envision entering into such an arrangement with NCM anytime in the foreseeable future.”"

This is just plain stupid. As it is already Trailers play at least 10 minutes too long before a movie starts. The article also said that the pre-show will extend 5 minutes past the official start time of the movie.
 

Malcolm R

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Ditto. Another reason to avoid theaters. We used to get 2-3 commercials in the theaters around here, the last time I went I think there were 6-7.

I don't mind commercials in the pre-show, but once the lights go down I don't want to be force-fed commercials.
 

steve jaros

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A Trailer *is* a commercial. So now we are getting commercials within commercials.

There's something bizarro about that. The operative principle seems to be, if people WANT to see something, we will capitalize on that by forcing them to watch something they DON'T want to see first.
 

Garysb

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I must be getting old. I remember the days when there were no commercials in movie theaters and then when they started showing commercials people would boo, and theaters would remove trailers included with films when the movies advertised in the trailers were not schedule to play in that theater. Why promote something that was going to play at another theater? Of course that was when there were single theaters and not multiplexes. And when films were shown in 35MM not digital.
 

Worth

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With reserved seating, I can see more and more people coming into the theater late to skip all of this kind of crap.
I already do that. There's about 15-20 minutes of commercials and trailers now.
 

Josh Steinberg

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If these guys start doing it, AMC will too, eventually.

At the risk of being cynical - the theatrical exhibition business is changing rapidly and the types of films that remain profitable in this new environment continue to shrink. Theaters are very close to being viable only for tentpole event pictures. And when measured against a ten year audience investment in Avengers or a generational investment in Star Wars, along with the newly weaponized spoiler threat (see it the first day or it will be ruined for you!), no one is skipping the next Star Wars movie over a commercial being played beforehand. They know they have you.

The larger issue remains - the number of things they have you for is steadily declining. Studios can’t make 52 tentpoles a year with each having the cultural cachet of a Star Wars, and can’t make more than a certain number of the existing franchise films too close or it dilutes the brand. Many people are deciding that going to the movie theaters isn’t the best way for them to view that content. I don’t think this substantially changes that equation. It’s a desperation move made by an industry facing the end of its life, at least as we know it.
 

Malcolm R

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Many people are deciding that going to the movie theaters isn’t the best way for them to view that content. I don’t think this substantially changes that equation. It’s a desperation move made by an industry facing the end of its life, at least as we know it.
But I believe this will simply further discourage those that would be mostly likely to attend theaters more often if the experience wasn't such crap.

Yes, they'll put up with it for the tentpoles, but if they have to put up with it for every single film they'll simply pull back further.

It's a bad cycle. They're selling more ads because attendance is falling, but attendance will likely fall further because they're forcing more ads.
 

dpippel

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no one is skipping the next Star Wars movie over a commercial being played beforehand. They know they have you.

But they don't have me. Every single tentpole film I'll see in the next year will be playing in multiple theaters that offer reserved seating. So I arrive 15 minutes after the posted showtime, skipping the trailers and commercials in the process, sit down in my reserved spot. and watch my movie. The theater has done nothing more than inconvenience me, and more than likely piss me off because I had to resort to these tactics to avoid having even more ads rammed down my throat.

I can only speak for myself, but this kind of thing only drives me further away from buying tickets to see films in a movie theater.
 

Josh Steinberg

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If I’m understanding this correctly, the idea is to play a commercial after the final trailer but before the film starts. So it seems that this is being rolled out precisely to target moviegoers who show up as late as possible. I generally arrive late enough to miss the preshow ads but I’m not about to start trying to arrive to see the start of the movie but to miss the 30 second commercial that plays immediately before it. It’s too fine a needle to thread. Clearly that’s what they’re going for.

The business is dying. This will make it slightly more unpleasant for those who still go but it’s rats jumping off a sinking ship at this point.

I think in a short period, the only thing that will be in any way viable theatrically will be tentpole films with weaponized spoilers. And that won’t be enough to keep the exhibition industry afloat. Who knows, maybe the future will be studios renting our large concert halls and arenas to show tentpoles to large paying crowds who are willing to pay premium ticket prices, and everyone else sees it on a subscription streaming service a week after that.
 

dpippel

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If I’m understanding this correctly, the idea is to play a commercial after the final trailer but before the film starts. So it seems that this is being rolled out precisely to target moviegoers who show up as late as possible. I generally arrive late enough to miss the preshow ads but I’m not about to start trying to arrive to see the start of the movie but to miss the 30 second commercial that plays immediately before it. It’s too fine a needle to thread. Clearly that’s what they’re going for.

From the article (emphasis mine):

Under a new agreement with major in-theater advertising firm National CineMedia, top exhibitors Regal and Cinemark will incorporate advertising just prior to the “attached” trailers before feature films.

AMC was approached by National CineMedia to inject ads between the last trailer and the feature, and AMC balked.
 

Jake Lipson

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I think the idea here is that the closer to the movie the ad plays, the more people are in the theater to see it, because no one wants to risk missing the beginning of the movie just to avoid seeing a commercial. Therefore, the chains will argue that they can charge the advertiser more money for an ad that plays immediately prior to the feature as opposed to an ad that plays during the preshow. This is like how the Super Bowl ad time is more expensive than anything else on TV because they know more people will watch that than anything else on TV. So Cinemark and Regal are taking the short-term gain of more advertising revenue, without thinking about the long-term damage to their business that will be incurred by taking that extra revenue.

Funnily enough, this already happened once this year to me at Cinemark. On the opening night of Avengers Endgame, they played this Audi ad, featuring Brie Larson as Captain Marvel. It was a really distracting way to start the experience of Endgame, and transitioning from this to Hawkeye and his daughter on the farm was very bizarre.

 

Adam Lenhardt

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Only AMC seems to understand that the theatrical exhibition business is facing an existential threat. People already have more reasons than ever before to skip the cinema. Now is not the time to give them another reason.

With reserved seating, I can see more and more people coming into the theater late to skip all of this kind of crap.
As has been mentioned, I think reserved seating is a big part of what's driving this. Now that people no longer need to show up early to get a good seat, the twenty minutes of ads before the trailers no longer get nearly as many eyeballs as they used to. This "platinum" ad is a way to guarantee more eyeballs.

If these guys start doing it, AMC will too, eventually.
AMC will watch and wait. If Regal and Cinemark take a big hit from this, they won't follow suit. If Regal and Cinemark weather it, then yes, they will eventually follow suit.

But I believe this will simply further discourage those that would be mostly likely to attend theaters more often if the experience wasn't such crap.
Exactly. At some point, entertainment distributors (whether they be cinemas, concert halls, ballparks, etc.) stopped remembering that they were in the business of selling an experience. A lot of these more recent new revenue streaming degrade the experience being sold in ways that have costs that are harder to quantify than the new revenues.
 

Mike2001

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Part of the coming in late thought was the statement that the exhibitors plan to play the pre-show ads until five minutes past the advertised start time. That is an easy one for people to skip if they have reserved seating. The later premium commercial would be harder to skip and only possible if the actual start time information is available somewhere.
 

Josh Steinberg

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I’ve also noticed - and I’m not sure if this is just my Regal or all Regals - but they change the preshow trailers and ads now from week one to week two. They tend to cut it back a little bit, probably to give them more flexibility with showtimes. But it also means that I can’t consistently guess how late I can arrive without missing the actual movie. Sometimes it’s 10 minutes late, other times its as long as 25 minutes. So they already make it hard to gauge how late one can show up.
 

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