This is topic Preshow Advertisements (Trailers & Commercials) Are Too Long in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 01-19-2012, 11:35 AM:
 
Fox News

quote: Fox News

The time a movie is scheduled to start and the time it actually begins seem to be getting further apart. Take this story from a frustrated moviegoer who saw “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” in New Jersey over the weekend.

“The show time was 1:10 p.m., but the movie started sometime after 1:40,” he said. “There were lots of trailers mixed with advertisements for the theater and IMAX. Every time we thought it was over it, it just kept going.”

And he’s not the only one who’s complaining.

“Movie theater ads are out of control and history hasn’t been kind to businesses that insult their customers,” said Los Angeles-based media expert Michael Levine. “The experience of going to movie theaters today is, frankly, insulting. By the time the film starts, I am annoyed and exhausted.”

“In the age of TiVo, people are less and less comfortable with being bombarded by commercial messages,” Levine continued. “They prefer to sit at home in a more comfortable environment with their big screen TVs. Cinema numbers are declining because people no longer find the experience appealing.”

There’s no denying that attendance is down. In 2010 sales were off 5.2 percent from the previous year, and in 2011 the numbers fell a further 4.7 percent. Could it be that the ever-evolving number of ads and trailers are detracting from the cinema experience?

“One ad is too many as far as cinemagoers are concerned,” says Rob Weiner, movie librarian at Texas Tech University. “People get really annoyed with the ads and just make fun of them. I, too, am fed up with having to sit through ads; they don’t work anymore, as people simply hate them.”

Well, not everyone.

“I actually don’t mind sitting through a few ads; it gives me more time to find parking, use the bathroom, buy popcorn or chat with friends in the lobby if I need to,” San Jose-based publicist Angie Meyer said. “But sitting through them is fine, too. They’re usually interesting and different from what is on television, and I love the excitement and anticipation going into the trailers.”

But if you’re easily annoyed by watching what you didn’t pay to see, you may also want to rethink turning up early. An Arbitron study found that moviegoers arrive 24 to 28 minutes before previews begin, paving the way for theaters to show behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and trivia for 20 minutes before the movie’s scheduled start time, which is when the commercials and trailers begin.

There are no official surveys that measure whether ads and trailers have increased in recent years, but in 2010, the most recent year for which figures are available, cinema advertising revenues increased 12.7 percent from 2009. A 30-second spot can run as high as $2.5 million. Movie attendance is also the primary factor that determines the price of cinema advertising; thus seasonal trends in blockbuster releases often drive rates higher during holiday weekends. And the closer to the movie starting time, the more expensive the ad time.

But Bryan Jefferies, marketing director for the Cinemark theater chain, said there are only a set number of spots available for advertisers,and while that number hasn’t necessarily decreased, it hasn’t increased either.

“Two years ago, there was mild objection about the length of ads and trailers, but that seems to have passed and it isn’t a big deal anymore,” Jefferies said. “People expect it now, and have either adjusted or plan around it. He noted that at least in the case of Cinemark , each theater across the country has the same fixed number of pre-show ads. “Lots of people come for, and really enjoy, the pre-show. Advertisers take advantage of that and create unique, interesting spots and put fresh ideas in front of people. We don’t get calls of complaint like we used to.”

Over the years, some lawmakers have tried unsuccessfully to force theater owners to advertise movies’ real start times. In 2005 Connecticut state Rep. Andrew Fleischmann proposed a law that would have made it mandatory for movie theaters in the state to advertise the actual start times. The proposal never made it past committee.

Theater owners argue that even though ticket prices continue to rise, advertising revenue is crucial to keeping the industry alive.“It is part of the theater business model; cinemas already pay a large amount of money to studios just to play the film, so there are very few revenue streams for the actual theater. You have got to have money coming back in,” Jefferies said.

According to Mark Mitchell, president and chairman of the Cinema Advertising Council, the “youthful, socially connected, pop culture-loving” profile of the moviegoer is particularly attractive to companies and corporations who actively seek out those pre-movie ad spots.

“Connecting with that audience in a distraction-free, dark theater using a 40-foot screen and surround sound is like no other medium,” he explained. “Moviegoers are also in the mindset that is receptive to the experience. Research shows that someone shown the same ad on TV and in a cinema likes the commercial 10 times better when viewed at the movies!”

For several years, the Captive Motion Picture Audience of America (CMPAA) has devoted itself to eliminating what it calls the “invasive” advertising techniques used by movie theaters, which it claims takes away from what going to the movies should be all about. CMPAA encourages audience members to contact theater owners to convey their distaste for pre-movie commercials and to support commercial-free theaters.

Or . . . if worse comes to worst …

“Shout out ‘no commercials!’ or something more witty,” CMPAA advises on its website. “No need for a tirade, just make your dissatisfaction known.”
I personally agree. The length of many circuit's pre-show is out of control. At today's prices, I find it offensive to be forced to watch commercials. Further, while I enjoy trailers, 30 minutes of them is way too many even for me. I sometimes feel that the circuits want me to stay home.
 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-19-2012, 12:27 PM:
 
I think 30 minutes is too long. It just encourages late-comers. We don't do ads here, so we run anywhere from 3 to 5 trailers. If we're showing a hugely-popular movie we might sometimes run 6 trailers, which gives everybody time to get through the concession line.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-19-2012, 12:45 PM:
 
IMHO, all the TV commercial style ads (any ad that isn't a movie trailer) need to be on the pre-pre-show, before the advertised start time. With so many movie theaters now equipped with digital projection I see no excuse for them to do otherwise. I'll arrive at the theater at least a good 10-15 minutes before the show begins in order to claim a good seat. I don't like watching another several minutes of TV commercials after the start time. There's still another 15-20 minutes worth of movie trailers set to play.

The large number of ads and trailers does not go over well with audiences. On MANY occasions I have observed audience members become increasingly irritated as more and more trailers play. By the time the pre-show gets to the last 1 or 2 trailers I'll literally hear people groaning, shifting around in their seats and muttering things like, "Aw c'mon, man" or "Jesus Christ, another one?" I've even heard people yell out, "start the damned movie already!"

Add to this the still in effect policy from Hollywood of making movie trailers and TV commercials louder than the feature. "Digital" apparently didn't solve that problem.

Some theater chains, such as Warren Theaters, advertise the fact they run a minimal amount of movie trailers and no TV commercial style ads. If I go to a show at the Warren Moore 14 and arrive early, I'll get seated facing a closed curtain with a Warren Theaters logo projected on it. No dimmer than standard video projection of countless TV commercials and trivia ads. When the curtain opens they play their standard policy snipes, a couple movie trailers and then start the movie.

As to whether the large number of trailers and commercials are convincing some people to stay at home, I think the situation is more complicated than that. There are numerous negative factors one can encounter when watching a movie in a commercial movie theater. A half hour of commercials and trailers is just one of that negative factors. Discourteous audience members playing with phones and doing other things to disrupt the show is, I believe, the biggest problem. Cost is a factor at least for some people. Lack of quality showmanship in many big chain theaters is another problem.
 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-19-2012, 02:24 PM:
 
quote: Bobby Henderson
making movie trailers and TV commercials louder than the feature. "Digital" apparently didn't solve that problem.
Nope, it didn't. With film we always ran the trailers at 4.0 and the movie at whatever sounded best for that movie. That hasn't changed, and the trailers still sound plenty loud enough at 4.0.
 
Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 01-19-2012, 02:29 PM:
 
I watched The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo at a Regal theatre. I arrived about 7-8 minutes after show time and still had to sit through about 6 trailers. That means they ran close to 25 minutes of trailers. Totally unacceptable to me. Besides the fact the customers didn't pay to watch trailers, running that many stretches out your show schedule and makes it so you have to be open earlier/later to get in the same number of shows.

I almost wonder if they programmed the entire recommended play list from the trail mix.
 
Posted by Melanie Loggins (Member # 6454) on 01-19-2012, 02:42 PM:
 
We play three trailers. Maybe four but that's rare. I have the occasional customer who comes in late and has missed 10 minutes of the movie because they have been trained by big theatres to show up late so they don't have to sit through the commercials and trailers. I figure, eventually, we'll have everyone trained to get here one time. (The fact that we've been selling out about 1/3 of our shows lately is actually training people to show up early.)

We recently decided to visit a multiplex. The kids had never been to a big theatre and we had a whole day on our hands. So we went to see a movie that I was actually going to be showing in 4 days! Anyway, I could rant about the prices of tickets and concession;, the stale popcorn; the fact that even though the tickets went on sale 30 minutes before the show you couldn't go sit down until 5 minutes before, leaving us in their lame lobby with two kids and stale popcorn for 20 minutes; the fact that the house wasn't clean even though we couldn't sit for 20 minutes because they had to "clean"; the movie being out of focus and shooting onto the masking; the sound only being in the front; the broken seat.... No, what pissed me off the most was the 3 commercials and 6 trailers, one of which was completely inappropriate for the family movie we were about to watch. I had been waiting for almost half an hour and I still had to wait another 20 minutes?!? Uh uh. So I came home with a renewed resolve to have a clean, cheap theatre that looks and sounds perfect.... and that only has 7.5 minutes of trailers at the front.
 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-19-2012, 03:35 PM:
 
quote: Melanie Loggins
I have the occasional customer who comes in late and has missed 10 minutes of the movie because they have been trained by big theatres to show up late so they don't have to sit through the commercials and trailers. I figure, eventually, we'll have everyone trained to get here one time.
We get the same thing: People showing up 45 minutes after the showtime, saying "the previews are still on, right?" and being incredulous when I tell them they've missed 35 minutes of the movie.

Getting them trained? Forget it. We have been running the same style of programming (number of trailers) and basically the same schedule (two shows Fri/Sat, one show other nights, closed Thursdays) for over 30 years, plus we post the showtimes in foot-tall letters on our marquee, and some people who have lived here forever still can't seem to know when the shows are.
 
Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 01-19-2012, 04:03 PM:
 
quote:
quote: Fox News
That's all I needed to see to know it's not worth the read.
 
Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 01-21-2012, 09:22 PM:
 
Cinemark guy said "We don’t get calls of complaint like we used to."

That's because the people who complained have STOPPED GOING ALTOGETHER.
 
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-21-2012, 10:59 PM:
 
Three trailers are good. Four is acceptable. Any more than that and you clearly hate your audience. I agree with Bobby that the TV commercials need to be before the show and they don't need to run at 120db. At Regal, you can't even have a conversation with the person you are sitting next to before the movie begins. Plus, if the show is scheduled to start at 7:30 (for example), I know that they continue to show more ads and it is planned that way (at least at Regal, likely anyone who runs NCN or whatever it is called). And if you start the movie early the corporate office will slowly tear the manager's ass open with pliers. They monitor that very closely. They don't care what happens with the actual movie itself. That's not important at all. But those ads, man... those ads.

Exhibitors are more advertisers than showmen these days. This cannot be argued, with the exception of the rare individual theater. Gives people good reason to pirate movies.
 
Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 01-22-2012, 03:38 AM:
 
You can train them...
I have been running with my current setup noe for 8 years.
Preshow (trailers)starts 10 mins before advertised start.
local ads/national ads start at advertised time (5 mins) then the movie starts.
90% are here well on time to see the 10 mins, last nite I had to throw a few mode trailers up on the data projector before the 8pm movies as the punters all turned up at once. (We started 8 - 10 mins late with everyone in for the start of the movie.
 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-22-2012, 11:30 AM:
 
Maybe the reason they're coming early is because they WANT to see the trailers. Some probably get annoyed when the trailers are then followed by a bunch of ads. I think ads should run before the start time -- not trailers. Just my 2 cents.
 
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-22-2012, 11:59 AM:
 
You mean that there are places that make a regular practice of showing commercials between trailers and the feature film? That's insane. Landmark did it once when they were paid a huge amount of money to show an American Express commercial (with Martin Scorsese in it) in that slot, and it just ruined the entire flow of the program.

For those who _must_ show commercials, the only acceptible program order to me is commercials->trailers->feature. Otherwise, there is no clear distinction between movie trailers and advertisements for other products. As a viewer, this type of unanticipated context-switching would leave me irritated.

Obviously, the real solution is to get rid of commercials entirely.

I can sort of tolerate slide advertising, as it does not make noise and is not quite as attention-grabbing as film ads, but I am sure that the film ads generate significantly more revenue (at least in the short term...over the long term, they cause people to stay home instead of going out to movies). The worst part about all forms of screen advertising is that it hurts the industry as a whole, including the theatres which do not show screen ads.

I also do not understand why anyone would show more than 3-4 trailers at most. A trailer reel that is longer than that would have the effect of annoying viewers and would also reduce the chances that viewers might remember trailers that they saw for films that interested them. After about four trailers, the whole thing just becomes a big muddled mess in my mind (and that of other people I know). Better to show fewer trailers and make sure that viewers remember what they saw (so that they can possibly buy tickets for those films later).
 
Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-22-2012, 07:51 PM:
 
quote: Edward Havens
That's all I needed to see to know it's not worth the read.
Way to have an open mind.

quote: Jesse Skeen
That's because the people who complained have STOPPED GOING ALTOGETHER.
There's some truth to that. A real test would be to ask people who have stopped going to movies WHY they stopped going. That might make a more interesting and useful poll. I just don't think the theater execs care.

For our first look pre-show, the "You've been watching the AMC First Look" thing ended at exactly the start time for the movie. When it ended, we started the show (previews). Everything after that was cut off. There was always some extra crap for some Fathom Events something or other, and maybe another ad for something. They never made the screen. Start time is start time. Don't believe me? Check your cell phone's time (assuming it synchronizes to "network" atomic clock time) and you will see. Every other theater lets that extra crap hit the screen extending the time five minutes or more for no reason what so ever. And it is annoying.
 
Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 01-22-2012, 11:11 PM:
 
Sorry, Mark. In this case of your snark, you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
 
Posted by Christopher Crouch (Member # 3784) on 01-23-2012, 01:16 AM:
 
I regularly experience the flip side to this issue. The theatre I manage doesn't have excessive preshow marketing. One would expect this to work in our favor. However, far too often, I encounter people who have purposely shown up later, to avoid the expected advertisements, only to discover they've missed the start of their movie. They've become conditioned to 15+ minutes of commercials/previews at other theatres and are angry with us for not having them. For us, it's almost a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.
 
Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-23-2012, 04:14 AM:
 
Edward, please explain what part of my comment is incorrect.
 
Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 01-23-2012, 11:16 AM:
 
Your snippy comment "Way to have an open mind" to my statement about Fox News. You have no idea what the hell you are talking about, when it comes to me and my history with Fox News. It really is that simple.
 
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 01-23-2012, 12:01 PM:
 
quote: Christopher Crouch
I encounter people who have purposely shown up later, to avoid the expected advertisements, only to discover they've missed the start of their movie
Simple solution to that is to do as we do -- we publish three times -- 1) when the doors open. 2) The Showtime, i.e., the start of the entire show including the cartoon and trailers, possibly a short subject. We tell them that. Then finally 3) the Feature Start Time. This way they know exactly what's what. If they choose to miss the trailers (they also miss the cartoon, which is a catch because even the most jaded patron loves the cartoon). They also may not get the best seat if they choose to forego the trailers. Letting them know exactly what you are doing eliminates patrons getting surprised or annoyed. We also state that we run no more than 8 minutes of trailers. That's usually 3 or 4 max. When we run classics, those trailers can be as long as 4 min, so we'll adjust according. We also proudly state that we run NO TV commercials. It's served us well.
 
Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-23-2012, 02:02 PM:
 
My comment was in response to your snippy comment. There's no reason to join the conversation just to tell us that you're not joining the conversation.
 
Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 01-23-2012, 02:11 PM:
 
I refuse to participate in this discussion! [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-23-2012, 02:52 PM:
 
[Razz] [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 01-24-2012, 12:09 AM:
 
It's actually a pointed commentary on the worthless of anything coming from Fox News, Mark, but thank you for playing.
 
Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 01-24-2012, 01:39 AM:
 
quote: Christopher Crouch
They've become conditioned to 15+ minutes of commercials/previews at other theatres and are angry with us for not having them.
That's one nice thing about being in a relatively isolated market. We are rarely fighting the bad habits of other theatres. We set our standard as "about 10 minutes" many years ago and we have never wavered from it. Sometimes with a major blockbuster we'll stretch it out to 12-13 minutes, but those shows usually have longer lines and it allows extra time to get everyone settled in.

The few people we have who purposely arrive late to miss the previews are always about 8-12 minutes after show time and they never gripe about missing the start of the show.
 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-24-2012, 11:23 AM:
 
quote: Edward Havens
It's actually a pointed commentary on the worthless of anything coming from Fox News
Sorry, but that's simply not true. Does Fox have a right-leaning slant? Yes, just like CNN has a leftward slant. But they both report news and facts, and to say that anything coming from either of them is "worthless" is just incorrect.

Back on topic: I feel a need to defend my practice here of running four or five trailers. First, we don't run any other pre-show content (not even slides), so five trailers is at most 12 1/2 minutes worth, meaning a 7:00 feature is going to start by 7:13 at the latest, which to me isn't unreasonable. Second, we are a single screen so that means all of the movies for the trailers we play might be coming within the next six weeks. And, we have no space for a lobby video screen to play trailers on, so we only have the one place to play trailers.

There's also the fact that I've gotten zero complaints about our trailers in the last 30+ years (outside of them revealing too much plot info), which has got to count for something.

Of course, the length of the feature can have a bearing too. If we're running a 140-minute movie, I might play only two or three trailers, depending on what's coming up. And, thanks to digital cinema, I sometimes feature fewer trailers on the late shows. There are no hard and fast rules, really.
 
Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-25-2012, 05:26 AM:
 
quote: Edward Havens
It's actually a pointed commentary on the worthless of anything coming from Fox News, Mark, but thank you for playing.
You think I didn't know that's what you meant? Ok.

quote: Mike Blakesley
to say that anything coming from either of them is "worthless" is just incorrect.
...or closed minded.

At AMC we had a system that tracked and reported customer comments which came in through the 800 number. The system was web based and all of the comments were organized by theater. Those of you who manage at AMC may know what I'm talking about. If you don't, look into it. It's pretty interesting stuff. At the end of the night, I used to like going through those and reading all of the comments from all of the theaters.

After reading them for several months, I noticed that the complaints generally fell into two categories.
Overwhelmingly, the complaints that came in were of the first category. However, of all of the complains in the second category, the number one complaint was "too many trailers / commercials in front of the movies." Despite that, we would constantly add more trailers, more commercials, modernize the commercials and make them more glitzy... It seemed like we never listened to the complaint at all. That is why I said that I believe the execs don't care. Maybe that's harsh, though, so I apologize for that. A better way to say it is that the execs don't think it's a big enough problem. But my experience from working on the front line and talking to customers tells me that it is a problem.
 
Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 01-25-2012, 11:54 AM:
 
Actually, Mike B., it has nothing to do with Fox's right-leaning slant. My bias against Fox News has everything to do with the amount of misinformation in every article on their site that has ever been brought to my attention.

So I went back and read the "article" Mitchell posted. And, sure enough, it's filled with the same kind of backwater journalistic bullshit I have come to expect from Fox News. This story starts off with one anonymous person's experience with one show at one theatre (most likely the author of the "article" themselves), and then continues to postulate the issue this one person had at this one theatre this one time is typical of every person's experience at every theatre, and finds "experts" to support the writer's theory, most of whom have nothing to do with the industry in question.

I can only speak for my own personal experiences, but ever since the advent of the digital pre-show about a decade ago, I have never been to a movie screening in a commercial cinema that had more than 16.5mins of trailers before the actual movie started. Before the digital pre-show, there'd be ads for newspapers and radio stations and soda and other products as part of the trailer pack once the film projector started up. Now, all that stuff is in the digital pre-show, and the only time I've ever seen a commercial during the trailer pack was at a 3D movie, when the first thing shown after the "Put on your 3D glasses" insert was a 3D commercial. Always less a minute long, and it still kept the time between the start of the program and the start of the movie at less than 16.5mins.

But seriously, the "suggestion" in the "article" from the CMPAA to start shouting out during the show? That's irresponsible, since we all know why that would be ineffective, and it's rude to the other guests, most of whom don't give a crap.
 
Posted by Taylor Wiemann (Member # 6738) on 02-02-2012, 06:43 PM:
 
dont forget you can also print out signs from their website saying you "refuse" to sit through commercials. I found this entertaining to say the least.
 




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