Cinema: Clear ranges at last
For years, the movie industry tracked its attendance figures in two ways: The ProCinema association counted admissions, and Wemf surveyed 23,500 people annually on behalf of the cinema marketer Publicitas Cinecom. The result: different metrics and completely contradictory results. With the new Mach Cinema, however, WEMF has now found a solution that is also supported by Publicitas Cinecom and ProCinema.
First things first: the results of the new Mach Cinema reach study published by Wemf on September 9 are no longer comparable with Wemf's previous cinema reach figures. The new study leads to a currency break in Wemf's cinema audience research.
To illustrate the progress made by the new study, it is worth taking a look back: In the 2007 calendar year, ProCinema counted a total of 13.8 million movie admissions. Wemf, on the other hand, which published its most recent cinema admissions figures as part of Mach Basic 2008-2 (survey period April 2007 to March 2008), extrapolated to 17.5 million moviegoers, a difference of 26.8 percent. The difference was neither an isolated case nor comprehensible. It was methodological. For the cinema industry and in particular for the cinema advertising marketer Publicitas Cinecom, however, this was a nuisance, also because the Wemf reach has fallen steadily since 2004, while ProCinema has shown annual fluctuations.
However, the climate has changed since the change of management at Wemf in March 2007. Marco Bernasconi initiated the new study just a few months after taking office as Wemf Director - also because Publicitas Cinecom expressed the intention of launching its own reach study.
The new Mach Cinema study is essentially a mix of survey and ticket sales data. In other words, it combines the strengths of the two methodologically different surveys and leaves aside their weaknesses. Nina Bender, Mach Cinema project manager, explains it this way: "The ProCinema statistics by calendar year provide the benchmarks, while the Wemf surveys, with their staggered but also 12-month survey period, provide the target group structures."
The admission statistics from ProCinema, which are considered reliable and can be analyzed by screen, film and week, now serve as the basis for the absolute reach. However, as these statistics also include children under the age of 14 and people not resident in Switzerland, they must be "adjusted" accordingly. For the latter, Wemf conducts random surveys in the border regions of Basel and Geneva. What is also excluded: the attendance figures of those (few) cinemas that are not under contract with Publicitas Cinecom, because as the client of the study, the advertising marketer is, as before, only interested in "its" reach. The adjusted reach figures are 16.3% lower overall than those of the ProCinema admission count (which, incidentally, will continue to be published).
However, as the ProCinema statistics do not contain any socio-demographic data, the information on a person's frequency of cinema attendance, their socio-demographics and consumer characteristics is derived from the 23,500 annual Wemf surveys of people aged 14 and over. "The structural data of the previous Wemf cinema studies were never disputed, only the result of the reach extrapolation," explains Wemf Head of Research Harald Amschler.
The consequences of the combination of methods: the new cinema reach figures fall to the level of the (adjusted) ProCinema figures. Individual reach figures for the 52 cinema weeks and the reach of an average week are now available for each of the 13 Cinecom cinema pools. For the first time, the placement of cinema advertising can now be planned on a seasonal basis. Another change: Cinema advertising will become more expensive, even if secondary rates remain the same. This is because the thousand contact price (CPM) is rising due to the lower reach.
Markus Knöpfli
To illustrate the progress made by the new study, it is worth taking a look back: In the 2007 calendar year, ProCinema counted a total of 13.8 million movie admissions. Wemf, on the other hand, which published its most recent cinema admissions figures as part of Mach Basic 2008-2 (survey period April 2007 to March 2008), extrapolated to 17.5 million moviegoers, a difference of 26.8 percent. The difference was neither an isolated case nor comprehensible. It was methodological. For the cinema industry and in particular for the cinema advertising marketer Publicitas Cinecom, however, this was a nuisance, also because the Wemf reach has fallen steadily since 2004, while ProCinema has shown annual fluctuations.
However, the climate has changed since the change of management at Wemf in March 2007. Marco Bernasconi initiated the new study just a few months after taking office as Wemf Director - also because Publicitas Cinecom expressed the intention of launching its own reach study.
The new Mach Cinema study is essentially a mix of survey and ticket sales data. In other words, it combines the strengths of the two methodologically different surveys and leaves aside their weaknesses. Nina Bender, Mach Cinema project manager, explains it this way: "The ProCinema statistics by calendar year provide the benchmarks, while the Wemf surveys, with their staggered but also 12-month survey period, provide the target group structures."
The admission statistics from ProCinema, which are considered reliable and can be analyzed by screen, film and week, now serve as the basis for the absolute reach. However, as these statistics also include children under the age of 14 and people not resident in Switzerland, they must be "adjusted" accordingly. For the latter, Wemf conducts random surveys in the border regions of Basel and Geneva. What is also excluded: the attendance figures of those (few) cinemas that are not under contract with Publicitas Cinecom, because as the client of the study, the advertising marketer is, as before, only interested in "its" reach. The adjusted reach figures are 16.3% lower overall than those of the ProCinema admission count (which, incidentally, will continue to be published).
However, as the ProCinema statistics do not contain any socio-demographic data, the information on a person's frequency of cinema attendance, their socio-demographics and consumer characteristics is derived from the 23,500 annual Wemf surveys of people aged 14 and over. "The structural data of the previous Wemf cinema studies were never disputed, only the result of the reach extrapolation," explains Wemf Head of Research Harald Amschler.
The consequences of the combination of methods: the new cinema reach figures fall to the level of the (adjusted) ProCinema figures. Individual reach figures for the 52 cinema weeks and the reach of an average week are now available for each of the 13 Cinecom cinema pools. For the first time, the placement of cinema advertising can now be planned on a seasonal basis. Another change: Cinema advertising will become more expensive, even if secondary rates remain the same. This is because the thousand contact price (CPM) is rising due to the lower reach.
Markus Knöpfli
