Unconventional advertising

[Boni]

Has anyone bought those slide show spots that run in movie theatres before the movie starts?

My thought is you have a very captive audience with not much else to do. They are our demographic usually. Young adults willing to fork over 8-12 bucks for a couple hours of entertainment.

[JamBam]

An event in Ft Wayne that I know the owners of have used a theater for ads like you ask about. I think the first year they paid $ 1000 per week for a ten week (minimum) run. They said it was cheaper the following years but didn't say how much. They feel it is worth it.

[UndeadProd]

We had decent success doing that form of advertising one year - but it was with a smaller and independent theatre, so we were also able to work out some additional lobby displays and stuff. Having a direct realationship with the actual people who ran the thatre was great.

With the larger chains, you usually end up dealing with some outside company of rep -- which usually means less flexibility - but can still work out.

The main issue I've found is that the theatres usually insist that you have to place ads on all of their screens, which is fine when you're dealing with a 8 screen location --- and kind of brutal when dealing with one of those uber-plexes with 20 or more screens.

One thing, most of these theatre programs need lots of advance notice and usually prefer extended contracts ... so if you're thinking about doing it, I'd suggest calling ASAP.

[Jim Warfield]

That line was often repeated as we waited to see "Dark Knight" as they ran numerous ads for everything imaginable across the screen.
The only thing is, they were showing us THE worst quality pictures that I have ever seen!
Extremely grainy, a yellow tinge, very hard to decypher what you were even looking at, let alone drive you to spend money on something.
If I was one of their advertisers and saw this crap I would demand my money back.
Spray painted messages on the rest room walls would look better and probably work better than this.

[Boni]

Our theatre uses a company out of Minnesota, were in Indiana. The quality is great and they can imbed video into your ad.

Its $1000 for 3 months. We missed it this year, but trying to set up for next year.

Its only $3000 for the whole year, being that my haunted house if for a youth center, were thinking of running a standard ad for 9 months and then the haunted house ad for 3 to make it more worth while.

[Greg Chrise]

Here the very small Family Entertainment Center has an add in among an attorney, a clothing store, dentists, and doctors.

You are there to see a movie and aren't necessarily going to jump up and go there. But, the branding would be worth it to families that had enough money to make it to the movies. No longer would it feel like, I don't know about that fly by might place. It would be, they care very much to be recognized so let's make sure we check it out.

[Jim Warfield]

To have an ad in the theater so tricky looking that it fooled many into believing they were seeing an ad for a horror movie!
Then people keep seeing the ad and get all anxious and can't find the listing for the "movie".
Then take some video of people screaming in the haunt and "Look at that! My stupid neighbor got into this neat horror movie somehow!?"