What if I could give you:
 

• A screen with the biggest impact, no distractions, and near-guaranteed attention.
• A screen that connects your brands with the greatest content on the planet.
• A screen that puts people in such a good mood that the ads are still regarded as part of the experience.
• A screen where the ads are actually really good, really big, really loud – and unskippable.
• A screen that makes ads look and feel better.
• A screen that over indexes in both light TV viewers and now heavy SVOD consumers.
• A screen that delivers far better dollar-for-dollar brand awareness, consideration, and preference than any other AV format.
   

You’d snap my arm off, right?

So here we are, almost a full 15 months since cinemas shut their doors to the pandemic and then for the last nine months waiting and watching as global supply chains of content perform random release date bingo as the US and UK got their act together.

A lot has happened in that time…

Without doubt, SVOD was the clear winner through Covid with 3.9 million more Aussies signing up to a service and 47 per cent of us subscribing to more than one service¹.  While business models were geared to taking advantage of a unique demand situation, our recent research suggests that streaming is starting to suffer similar problems to TV – with audiences perceiving content to be lacking depth as consumers feel like they “have finished Netflix”.  This will only become more convoluted as additional services like Paramount+ and HBO Max (probably) launch here.

Linear TV continues to do it tough. Despite an initial ‘Covid boost’, 2020 audience data pointed to a resumption of the same deflationary audience trends of the last five years.

No doubt the BVOD/CTV numbers go some way to offset these declines and audiences have grown significantly, but this is not a like-for-like comparison, with many noted issues with ad delivery that defy all laws of necessary frequency.

Meanwhile, continued delays to VOZ – Australia’s total TV measurement tool – deny advertisers proof of the true reach picture delivered by the networks. 
 

Cinema: What’s the opposite of hyperbole?
 

With every cloud comes a silver screened lining. While cinema has been famished for content, we’re now preparing a movie feast of biblical proportions. Literally. Even though this is a sponsored piece in a marketing-focused trade title, we are at significant risk of under-hype.

If you doubt Aussies’ desire for getting back into the cinemas… don’t.

Our research – The Great Escapers, now over two iterations – consistently finds there is massive pent-up demand for social entertainment experiences and that Australians are ready, willing, and ridiculously excited to get back to the cinema. There is not an Australian, particularly in Melbourne, who wants to spend more time at home. There is a reason why the NSW Dine and Discover voucher system has Cinemas as #1 and #2 in both categories.

With increasingly blurred lines between home and work-life, the opportunity to get out of the house and see a movie has re-awakened audiences to the magical power of the silver screen. The stars are brighter, the sound more immersive and the experience more powerful than ever before.

Easter’s audience numbers on a handful of key titles like Peter Rabbit 2 and Godzilla vs Kong resembled that of pre-Covid times and recent releases of Quiet Place Part 2, Cruella, Conjuring 2 and soon to be released Fast and Furious 9 point to a June result of circa 90 per cent of 2019 numbers.  All of this before the cavalry arrives.

We have a year’s worth of big-budget cultural moments jammed into the next six months  – leading experts to forecast that we could be back above 2019 audiences levels by September:

No Time to Die; Top Gun Maverick; Black Widow; Marvel Eternals; Dear Evan Hanson; In the Heights; Ghostbusters Afterlife; Space Jam: A New Legacy; The Suicide Squad; Free Guy; Dune; Last Night in Soho; Gucci; Sing2, West Side Story; Spiderman and The Matrix 4. Anyone else excited? We are.

Cinema now has the content, the audiences, the experiences, and the team to stage the greatest comeback story ever told… perhaps worthy of the big screen itself.

Be sure you’re in the audience.

 

¹Source: Australia Subscription Market 2020. The Telstye Australian Entertainment Subscriptions Study 2020.