16-34 year olds value Cinema over TV

16-34 year olds still value Cinema as a trusted environment

DCM, investigating the role of TV fragmentation as an opportunity for cinema advertising, has commissioned new research ‘Differentology’ to estimate the effectiveness of cinema advertising and determine its performance for UK cinema goers aged between 16-34.

Currently, TV is heavily fragmented. The research conducted in this study concluded that cinema may displace live TV as the cause of ‘watercooler moments’ since media is now so widely accessible.

Cinema is undeniably the only medium where viewers are totally engaged, and is the only ‘active’ channel, with it being a medium that people choose to experience total escapism. Most cinema goers are not tech-distracted, making them 100% more likely to engage with cinema advertising campaigns.

Audiences appear to be wildly more accepting to AV ads in cinemas, most likely due to the novelty of the experience of cinema going. Cinemas offer an immersive experience, with 44% of 16-19 year olds and 34% of 20-34 year olds saying that of all ads, they feel most positive towards AV advertising.

The 16-34 demographic is highly valuable to the industry and DCM concluded that this age group account for 44% of cinema ticket sales, with an attendance 19% higher than the national average at 8 times a year.

In line with the ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out) phenomena, over half of the surveys respondents admitted that they “don’t like missing out on things that other people are talking about” which perhaps explains the increase in ticket sales for bigger blockbuster releases such as the Marvel and Disney franchises, which are wildly discussed and anticipated. Disney flicks coming out next year such as Avengers 4, Toy Story 4, The Lion King, Star Wars and Captain Marvel are expected to cause am 8% admissions increase.

Within the 16-34 age range, 71% admit to feeling “hounded by advertising”, with 39% also admitting that because of this, they use ad blockers. With these statistics its easy to expect people to be more switched off when it comes to advertisements, however, people are generally open to advertisements, although they expect quality content and are receptive to advertising in the right context. Premium, trusted environments can deliver a big impact for brands.

During this survey, cinema was explained as being used for shared experiences (37%), high attention (34%) and quality content (31%) whereas live TV was mostly used for filling time (30%), background viewing (26%) and comfort (18%), compared to VOD, which is used mostly for binge viewing (27%), filling time (25%) and delivering quality content (19%).

For further network details and audience insight, please download our Vue media pack. For further information about how cinema advertising can help your brand or for a quote please get in touch, our team would love to hear from you.