Interactive Television (A WPP Group Company), one of the leading cinema advertising company which works with over 9,000 screens across India, has announced the launch of a third party monitoring tool - Cinema Audit Monitoring (CAM) which is being carried out in collaboration with Ipsos-media ct. This monitoring will be carried out in top eight cities covering 200 screens which contribute approximately 70 per cent of the cinema adex in a given week. The selected screens include key multiplex chains like PVR, Big Cinema, Cinemax, Inox, Fame, Fun, DT, SPI and Wave Cinemas.
The country’s film entertainment industry is the largest in the world in terms of the number of films produced (approx. 900) and its theatrical admissions (approx. three billion).
The film industry has evolved over time and technology has played a major role in the way cinema is presented to audiences in theaters. Movies which were previously released on just 200-300 screens are now screened in over 2,000 on day one. This has significantly improved the probability of every movie to make money and ensure profitability. The Rs 100 crore plus box office collections movie club has thus come into existence and is growing every year.
The year 2012 was an exciting year for the Indian film industry with footfalls returning to the big screen. The domestic theatrical segment grew at a CAGR of 23.8 per cent y-o-y contributing 76 per cent to the Rs 112.4 billion film Industry and it is expected to continue its growth trajectory and be worth Rs 193.3 billion by 2017.
According to Interactive Television founder and CEO Ajay Mehta, “Interactive’s proprietary tool CAM is a game changer for brands investing in cinema advertising in India. The results of the monthly audit will help our existing and potential clients recognise the growth opportunities for their brands whilst choosing cinema as an advertising medium. With this audit, we aim to provide transparency and visibility to our set of clients to assist them in result oriented media planning and buying.”
Ajay Mehta believes Interactives proprietary tool CAM will be a game changer for brands investing in cinema advertising in India
Cinema in India is big, but cinema advertising is not that great. Cinema advertising in India varies between Rs 200-250 crore; which is less than a per cent of the adex of overall media spends. Even UK has more than two per cent of their overall media industry, but India is not even one per cent claims Interactive Television’s report.
The report goes on to explain: the key reason is that there is no monitoring system is in place. Because of which the clients always question the measurability and ROI of the medium and therefore are not sure if their ads are playing or not and thus remain wary of including cinema in their media plan. Interactive Television tackles this issue through its proprietary tool CAM as it claims.
The findings of the first round of monitoring, which was conducted in August 2013, is already out. And the report captures all the brand ads screened before the movie and during the interval. It also includes the order in which they were played. The report also highlights the product categories, top spenders and their presence across eight cities.
The other key information areas which this report includes are - total numbers of brands present in cinema during the audit period, occupancy details before and during interval, commercial duration, commercial position, number of times each ad was played, total number of ads being played and average number of ads played with big movies.
CAM reporting will be done on a monthly basis and monitoring is done with big releases in that particular month. The August 2013 report indicates that the F&B category is leading in cinema, followed by personal care.
