Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Newspaper advertising-movie listing

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Posted by Mike Frese (Member # 4361) on 05-15-2010, 09:55 AM:

How many use newspapers to advertise movie listings today to somme extent?

a) never use
b) weekends and holidays and summer 7-days a week
c) weekends only
d) 7 days a week
e) other

We have been (d) as of late. My newspaper frustrates me. There are 4 theaters who advertise on weekends & holidays & all summer. Many times we will be above the fold in column 6 while the other bigger multiplexes will be below the fold in columns 1 & 2. We also want to buy a bigger ad to market 3d, but I almost hate to give them my money for not giving a damn about placement. Is it too much to ask to be located next to the bigger theaters?

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 05-15-2010, 11:24 AM:

Either the "big guys" are paying more than you for that ad location or they've worked out a deal with the parent company for getting good ad placement at a normal rate (due to them having high number of ads across the country).

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 05-15-2010, 03:27 PM:

I'm not sure if any of the movie theatres in Columbus advertise 7 days a week any more. I think, beyond a couple of studio sponsored ads during the week, most of them only do Fri/Sat/Sun. And even then, they only list the shows for those days. We list our whole week in our weekend ads.

I think, depending on the film, newspaper advertising isn't much of a return for us. Once our obligation is up, we'll probably drop the contract and just do ad-hoc. Basically, newspaper ads for films targeted at those over 45, and online only for anything else. AMC has stopped advertising altogether in the Columbus newspaper. I think they have 72 screens here. Given that their primary audience is the under 30's, I don't think the lack of newspaper ads is hurting them. Most of their audience is getting showtimes via mobile phones.

Posted by Mike Frese (Member # 4361) on 05-15-2010, 03:33 PM:

The problem seems to be that the person setting the layout does not know any better. The make-up of the 4 theaters is: Us 1st-run 3" ad, Discount theater 3" ad, Hollywood theater in a town 30 mins away 4" ad, and 8-plex regional theater 4" ad. Many times the two 4" ads are placed together while the two 3" ads are placed somwehere else. I have yet to see the two 4" bigger plex ads not next to each other. My only demand is that the 4 ads be grouped together. You would think the reader would like that too.

The sales rep has also placed blame on the news department for changing the layout for "flow of the news story".

Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 05-15-2010, 04:09 PM:

Here Cinemark, Detroit Theatre, Parma Theatre, and AMC (just a 2-liner) are 7 days a week.

Regal may have pulled out of the papers altogether. Atlas Cinemas, is either weekends, Thursday, and Friday, or 7 days too.

I know at this late point in the game advertisements in the paper aren't the best return on investment, but wouldn't you put at least a 1- or 2-liner in the paper if you were working for Regal?

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 05-15-2010, 06:20 PM:

We run a daily ad (5 days), but I see very little value in it anymore. As far as I can gather, seniors are the only ones who get our times from the paper.

I'm of the opinion that newspapers should run theatre show times at no charge. Traditionally the movie listings has been one of the few things that will actually cause people to buy papers.

We used to run an ad in the weekly want ad circular (The Penny Slaver). We canceled this ad about years ago and I've had may 2 people ask about it since we canceled.

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 05-15-2010, 06:49 PM:

About eight years ago I had the showtimes wrong for one movie in the paper. I forget the picture, but it was fairly well attended. One person showed up on Sunday at the wrong time. Out of the hundreds of people who came to that movie that weekend, she was the only one who had used the paper ad.

It was the last paid ad I have ever run in the paper.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-15-2010, 07:25 PM:

We went from 2-column display ads to directory listings. No negative effect. Then, we went from dailies to Fri-Sat. No negative effect. Late last year, I went generic... name, phone, web site, Fri-Sat. No negative effect.

Thie year, we pulled our ads altogether. No negative effect... and the paper doesn't seem to have noticed, either.

Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 05-15-2010, 07:52 PM:

About the only time I see kids pick up the newspaper is to look at movie listings.

Maybe it's only 30-40% in this market, but I highly doubt it is under 10%. Of course, YMMV depending on your geographical location.

I agree that papers ought cut movie advertisement prices a break. It is a loose-loose for everyone when the Enertainment section of the paper only lists a third of the theatres playing the movies being reviewed on the front page.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-15-2010, 08:31 PM:

We advertise in 2 papers, but they're both weeklies so the cost is minimal. Still, I see very little return on it. I too have had an incorrect showtime occasionally and almost nobody will show up at that wrong time.

Some of the people who work at the papers are good customers so that's the main reason we'll probably keep advertising in the paper. But our ad is maybe a fifth of the size it was 20 years ago.

The Carmike theatres in Billings run a directory ad on the weekends -- the rest of the week they just run a little 2-incher with the theatre's names, addresses and phone numbers. They don't run any display ads at all anymore.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 05-16-2010, 06:17 AM:

Find out how much your newspaper ads really mean and add a dummy time to your schedule...no-one will turn up.

Newspaper ads are next to useless.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-16-2010, 08:51 AM:

We are old men trying to make decisions for a different demographic.

My wife, a former English teacher, once ran a survey on newspaper effectiveness with 10th grade English students. Less than 10% had access to a paper and less than 10% of them (1%) actually read it.

Pull the ads, but find a substitute media outlet than is more suitable. Maybe Facebook, etc. Louis

Posted by Mike Croaro (Member # 3123) on 05-16-2010, 10:11 AM:

Folks:

Newspaper ads may be more effective for theatres that specialize in foreign and independent films. These venues typically attract an older (35+) audience.

Mike

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-16-2010, 01:57 PM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
Pull the ads, but find a substitute media outlet than is more suitable. Maybe Facebook, etc.

Yes, social media is a must these days. We're on facebook, Twitter, plus our regular website of course. I think all of them get way more attention than the paper ads.

The marquee itself gets more attention than everything else combined because we're right in the middle of town. I'm amazed that so many theatres these days have no outside marquee with titles. Doesn't anyone go to a movie on impulse anymore?

Posted by Matt Fields (Member # 3211) on 05-16-2010, 02:33 PM:

Mike-

How does your twitter account do? I am on both Facebook and Twitter, but I hardly have any Twitter followers but hundreds of Facebook people.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-16-2010, 07:52 PM:

Matt - same here. The only reason I even do Twitter is because we use MailChimp to do our weekly email and it has an automatic Twitter function.

Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 05-17-2010, 06:44 AM:

*lose-lose & Entertainment, forgot how to spell my last post, I guess [Embarrassed]

35+ is "old people"? Lol, I guess that means, *I* am getting old. Happens to everyone, though, right?

My problem with the 'net is that it is fragmentary, and I find it to be incredibly difficult to target advertising to a specific market.

Facebook, and far more so, Twitter, I find to be cheezy and not suited to the purposes they are now being used for, at least with the names for stuff, like being "Friends" with everyone, writing on a wall, un-friending someone, and blogging.

Fandango, Movie-Tickets.com, etc. seem to be better and well-utilzed by the young crowd, but aren't their prices higher than the papers?

And there still seems to be some favoritism bullshit, at least with Fandango, where the theatres that pay more pop up first even if they are farther away from the zip code you type in.

I can understand giving paying subscribers preferential status over non-paying ones, but if it is really a zip-code search, the theatres should pop up in order of closeness that do pay.

Mike: What exactly is MailChimp, an e-mail blast program?

Posted by Richard C. Wolfe (Member # 431) on 05-17-2010, 11:53 AM:

Newspaper advertising… to advertise or not, that is the question? Yes, that is certainly a good question. There have been a lot of excellent points made here, but what to do about it isn’t easily answered.

Newspapers certainly don’t hold the prime position that they once did, but can we do without them completely? It depends on your situation. Your prime audience and your location will determine the answer.

If you’re a typical first run multi-plex that exists primarily off of the number one movie demographic, the 13 to 30 crowd, I doubt that newspapers would do much for you. However, if you’re an art theatre, a rep house, or a 2nd run, newspapers still have their place, but I wouldn’t depend solely on them. Your web site, e-mail newsletter, other internet listings and your telephone answering system can do the majority of the work for you.

I’m a 2nd run, small town single screen, and I advertise in the big city daily 4 days a week ( $55.00 a col. Inch): Fri., Sat., Sun. and Wed. during most of the year. I also run an ad every Monday holiday when I run an extra matinee, plus every Monday during the summer when I’m running matinees every day. The only reason I run an ad every Wed. is because I have a matinee every Wed. all year long, and that show is patronized primarily by senior citizens, and they still use the newspaper to find out what is playing.

I also run a 5 inch ad in 4 weekly newspapers as well, that cover my town and the communities directly touching mine, which gives me excellent saturation for a 5 mile radius around my theatre which has a population of about 50,000 people. The daily extends the coverage area to about 30 miles and covers 750,000 people. Those 4 weeklies only cost me a total of $60.00 per week which I think is a great bargain.

Mike made an excellent point:

quote:
“The marquee itself gets more attention than everything else combined because we're right in the middle of town. I'm amazed that so many theatres these days have no outside marquee with titles. Doesn't anyone go to a movie on impulse anymore?”

The fact is that the marquees (roadside attraction signs) that are generally used today for multi-plex theatres are a total waste as no one can read more then 3 or 4 titles out of the 10 to 20 listed there, as they drive by. However, in Mikes and my situation where we are a single screen on Main Street in the heart of town, and that main street is often the only street that goes completely through town and everyone in town drives it every day on their way to work or school … that marquee is indeed the most important advertising media we have, and it’s FREE. Well… almost free. I spend a couple hundred dollars a year maintaining it, and $10.00 a week to pay someone to change it, but it’s still the cheapest form of advertising I have. I often watch people as they drive by, and there are very few that don’t look over and read the marquee copy.

One of my booking accounts, also a 2nd run single screen, dropped advertising altogether in that same daily that I use, as of about a year ago, and saw no drop in business whatsoever. It saved him $7,000, and in fact he’s ahead of last year thus far this year. I just can’t seem to bring myself to follow suite, but I’m definitely considering it.

A very large part of my audience is over 50, and they still read the paper. I therefore doubt that I’ll discontinue all newspaper advertising anytime soon, but I certainly agree that the effectiveness of newspapers has diminished greatly, and that day may very well come… someday.

Posted by Jonathan Smith (Member # 5609) on 05-17-2010, 01:58 PM:

Rich is talking by the column-inch, so he knows his stuff. . .

But, anyway, you have to have a marketing mix. Some of you guys listed have given up on the analog and thrown yourselves full-in with the digital, which is funny with a more-or-less analog product.

I'd love to say more, but I can't without the risk of being fired. . .

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-17-2010, 02:38 PM:

quote: Jonathan Smith

Mike: What exactly is MailChimp, an e-mail blast program?

Yes. The URL is http://www.mailchimp.com. It is free for 500 or less subscribers. It maintains your list for you, provides code to put in to your own website to get new subscribers, and also provides a WYSIWYG editor (plus a ton of templates) for creating your emails. I've used it since last September and like it a lot.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 05-19-2010, 09:41 PM:

We have a web site with a weekly mailing list function (all of which I built myself).

I have created functions on our web site to send times off to NowShowing.com and Cinema Source with very little effort.

We use Facebook - and those posts automatically post to Twitter.

We have the reliable showtimes recording - which I am tired of updating 2-3 times a week.

We run a small daily ad in our local paper - no more than 1x3.5".

We fax times out to a couple local resorts.

And we have our web site and showtimes recording number printed on our tickets and gift certificates.

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of our customers get their information from our showtimes recording or our web site. Probably the largest third party source is Yahoo Movies.