IGEM Insiderlunch: Cinema Advertising 2013
Starting in 2013, movie theater advertising in Switzerland will be offered by two different marketing agencies: Publicitas Cinecom and Werbeweischer. At an IGEM insider lunch, they presented their offerings and demonstrated that competition stimulates business.
Christian Wittmer, Managing Director of Publicitas Cinecom made it clear in his presentation, first of all, that his company still has the monopoly in both French and Italian-speaking Switzerland. In German-speaking Switzerland, it has a 62 percent share in terms of visitor numbers in 2011. From 2013, the offer structure will be completely new. It will be possible to book either individual films or genres or, as before, individual regions, grouped into pools. The previous, seasonally graduated prices will be replaced by a uniform CPM of CHF 12 for booking pools and CHF 13.20 for booking individual cinemas (film or genre). However, this CPM is not based on the specific visitor numbers of the booked offer but on an average of the last three years. This is to compensate for seasonal fluctuations. However, billing is then based on the actual number of visitors. If this is lower than forecast, the customer receives a corresponding discount; if it is higher, he can be happy. Because there is no subsequent charge.
In the local market, Publicitas Cinecom can only book rooms, cinema locations, cities or regions. In contrast to the national advertising market, bookings are not made per week but per month and according to the previous pricing system. The importance of local business is also underlined by the fact that it accounts for half of Publicitas Cinecom's sales. However, it remains unclear whether this is due to the strength of the local business or the weakness of the national business.
In any case, Nils Schilling from Werbeweischer Schweiz is convinced that there is much more to be gained from the national advertising market. It states its visitor market share as 54 percent in the five largest conurbations in German-speaking Switzerland. The new provider attaches great importance to planning according to content environments and specific target groups. In Germany, where this system was introduced a few years ago under the term Cinema reloaded, around three quarters of sales are now generated on this basis.
The basis of Werbeweischer's offering are the Kitag cinemas, which are only represented in German-speaking Switzerland. However, other cinemas such as Kiwi Cinemas, Cinewil and, most recently, cinemas in Aarau and Biel are being added on an ongoing basis. In contrast to Publicitas Cinecom, WerbeWeischer charges according to actual admissions. For 1000 visitors, a minimum of 11.50 francs is paid. Through daily monitoring of visitor numbers, each campaign is continuously optimized so that the agreed contact numbers are actually achieved. Thanks to information about the owners of the cinecards, a large online pool of respondents and, if necessary, empirical values from Germany, WerbeWeischer knows the socio-demographics of the visitors to a particular film.
