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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Topic: What cinema brand/naming had the most brand recognition with consumers?
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 08-20-2013 02:14 PM
My guess is that IMAX has the most, largely due to the massive expansion and marketing push that has been done over the past few years.
Dolby follows that closely, simply because they have been around so long and their name is synonymous with movie sound. Anyone paying the least bit of attention would recognize the logo and its association with movies, even if they couldn't tell you what the company did or how its products affected their moviegoing experience.
DTS is going to have some recognition, but greatly diminished compared to Dolby. People interested in the home theater hobby are going to recognize it, but probably not most casual moviegoers.
The generic "surround sound" term is going to have more comprehension than any of the actual companies involved in it, but 5.1 or 7.1 et al don't mean much to non-enthusiasts.
THX would probably have quite a bit of appeal to people, even if they didn't know exactly what it was or understood how it impacted the moviegoing experience. There has been enough branding over the years that it would take very little marketing to make it a viable brand again.
That fact is helped by all the big-screen concept theaters out there that use "X" in their names. AVX, XD, RPX, ETX, etc. all play off the effectiveness of the THX branding. I also believe that such brands are only effective regionally in the markets where they have been implemented. Ask someone outside of Texas what AVX meant to them, and they probably would look at you with bewilderment. Such brands only mean anything to the customers who have had it pushed in front of them, which means only those customers that go to Santikos theaters, in the AVX example.
70mm is a niche format with an ever-decreasing base of people that even know what it was, much less have ever seen a movie in the format. This probably would have the least recognition and comprehension of all of them.
At the risk of hijacking the thread, how many theaters that utilize any of these brands actually provide information about them, and how they impact the moviegoing experience? Some web sites do a good job, while others do nothing or hide it so well, it's nearly impossible to find.
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Pravin Ratnam
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 844
From: Atlanta, GA,USA
Registered: Sep 2002
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posted 08-20-2013 04:01 PM
Quite frankly, most consumers didn't care whether it was DTS or Dolby Digital when multiplexes used to promote them in the 90s. I know, I didn't as long as it was one of them. THX was a selling point to me at the time. But these days, theaters do not advertise the stuff I am interested in. Is it 4K or 2K digital projection? No clue. What kind of digital projectors do they use? No clue. What kind of sound do they use these days? No clue.
IMAX is no longer a big selling point to me after all the LIEMAX crap, especially for movies with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.
Just crank up the resolution of the next digital presentation format and I am there to watch it in the theaters.
Sadly, I may be in a small group of consumers that gives brightness huge priority, but these days, I have actually chosen the smaller auditorium to watch certain movies because I was fed up with the dim projection in the "showcase" major screen in a certain multiplex. Wasn't projection brightness part of the THX certification of a screen ?
70MM used to be a huge draw in countries like India. Hell, on a recent visit, I had a brand of "dosa"(looks like a crepe for those who do not know what it is) called 70MM dosa which was to signify how huge the dosa was.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 08-20-2013 11:39 PM
Dolby. No contest. We're talking over 40 years of history. And a brand with recognizable "equity" that extends far outside the techie circle it serves. Movies like Jaws and Star Wars as well as the first consumer tape decks equipped with Dolby noise reduction made Dolby a household name in the late 1970's into the early 1980's.
For instance, the modern version of 70mm (the Todd-AO variant from the 1950's) has almost always had 6-track audio. It wasn't until late 1976 with the re-make of A Star Is Born that Dolby got added to the "70mm" mark. Star Wars solidified that in 1977. "70mm" soon turned into a brand no longer a complete phrase without the "six-track Dolby Stereo" subhead added. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan brought about the most popular 70mm logo, complete with the "six-track Dolby Stereo presentation" subhead.
Dolby's brand name has faded some in recent years. Its 3D process does not have anywhere near the publicity of RealD or IMAX 3D. The revolutionary Dolby Atmos process has little if any advertising muscle behind it -certainly nothing in support coming from any of the major Hollywood studios.
In past 20 years DTS has gained a lot of traction, particularly in the area of home theater. DTS has been dominant in the field of surround sound music. DTS is pretty much the de facto surround sound format for Blu-ray disc, reversing the trend Dolby Digital enjoyed on DVD. On the downside, DTS is very much now a home-only kind of thing. The theatrical process is now, wrongly, called "Datasat Digital Sound" -IMHO a huge marketing mistake. Datasat's D-cinema is based on that brand rather than using the equity of DTS. The home and theatrical units of what used to be the same company should have worked out some kind of arrangement. Oh well.
Many average movie-goers know of the IMAX brand, but far too many are unknowing or ignorant of the differences between true 15-perf 70mm IMAX projection (combined with 15-perf 65mm IMAX original cinematography as opposed to "DMR" blow-ups from 4-perf 35mm film or HDTV quality video).
Going further, most average movie-goers probably couldn't pass any sort of mock exam about various features or achievements in technology of Dolby, DTS, SDDS, IMAX or that of any other commercial movie theater technology vendor.
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