The silver screen is changing. Slick Productions, Multiplex screening, and Aggressive multi media promotions are all wooing the urban city dweller. And they are responding positively. If trade reports about Devdas are correct, the film may, within a week of its screening, have already recovered the investments. And people are flocking for a second look!

But Cinema has been low on a media planner's priority. Lack of research and little control over implementation and monitoring are reasons cited. Perhaps this paper by Initiative Media will help.

Initiative Media paper titled 'Cinema- The Big picture' studies the attributes of the medium by using a research tool - RADAR and also presents top lines of a field research conducted in Ahmedabad.

• Cinema - The Indian Scenario
• Effectiveness of the medium - An Initiative Media Case Study
• Effectiveness of the medium - An Initiative Media Case Study
• A Qualitative Analysis of the medium - IMRadar Research

Cinema woh hi jo audience mann bhaye!
When it comes to early cinema advertising, big Lever brands were built using Cinema. Even today Vicco , ITC, Nirma & Coke are few brands who continue to invest on this medium. But is it effective enough? Initiative Media conducted an in-depth analysis of the medium.

To start with, let us look at Cinema viewership trends for All India Urban 15+ popln (illustrated below)

Cinema Viewership %
Criteria	98	99	2000	2001
< 7 days	7	7	6	5
> 7 days	12	13	12	10
< 4 weeks	11	10	10	9
3-6 months	8	7	6	6
> 6 months	22	18	20	23
Can't remember\ Never	40	46	45	48
Population	163971	166797	170870	177896
Monthly Rch %	19	19	19	14
Cinema	31376	32429	31713	25245
Index	100	103	101	80
Population Index		102	104	108

Source: IRS - R1-98, R1-99,R1-00, R2-01, 15+ Urban Population. Cinema last seen

Across the last 4 years, Cinema reach (defined as last visited within 4 weeks) shows a declining trend. It has dropped from 19% in 98 to 14% in 2001. However, almost 50% of the Indian population visits cinema theatres once or twice in a year. Is Cinema a lost battle or is there still scope for clients & advertisers. Let us probe for more details.

Cinema ke diwane kaun ? - Jawani Diwani
Chart II - Cinema Reach & Profiling

Segments	% Popin % dwn	% Cin-Month % dwn	Index Profile	% Reach - among segments % across
Working	46	56	122	18
Retired	3			2
Students	12	21	174	25
Not working	39	22	56	8
All	100	100	100	14

Source : IRS R2-01, Cinema viewership - 4 weeks.

Referring to above chart, Cinema clearly finds its skew towards students & working population. The major markets being AP, TN& Maharashtra which contribute around 50% of the All India Cinema going audience. [Source: IRS R2-01, Cinema visit upto a month ].

Kaho na Cinema Hai
Cinema appears to deliver to smaller audience with impact. Cinema may fulfil the useful role of a support or a complementary medium. It is one such medium which is unable to generate high frequencies. It would rather be a reach-impact medium than a frequency medium.
From an advertising perspective, it is imperative to re-look at the attractiveness of cinema from an impact point of view. Let us look at some International & Indian examples to lend support to the case.

International Khiladi
Chart III - International Case Study

International	Day - after recall	2 weeks	4 weeks
Advertiser A	67	53	50
Advertiser B	78	71	76
Advertiser A or B	87	78	76

Source : Johnson Cinema study- New Zealand, Marketing-bulletin-ac.nz

Referring to Chart III, on an average 63% remembered the ad after 4 weeks of cinema exposure. Creative is critical here as the second ad obtained around 76%recall. International case studies of brands like Toblerone, Cadbury, Orange in UK seemed to have gained by using Cinema sucessfully in their campaigns.

Hum Hindustani
In India, Initiative Media initiated a proprietary research in Ahmedabad late last year for a leading service client and the findings seemed to be in line with the International ones.

Methodology considered for the research is highlighted below :
Sample size of 100 cinema-goers in select cinema halls were exposed to the commercials twice. The brand advertising recall - aided was carried out in 3 phases

1. Immediate recall once the Target audience came out of the Cinema hall
2. Checking out the recall of ad after 15 days amongst half the sample ie : 50
3. Remaining 50 were contacted after a month to check out the brand advertising recall.

Cinema advertising effectiveness - Yaadein yaad aati hain!

Market	Immediate recall	Recall after 2 weeks	Recall after 2 weeks
Ahmedabad	86%	90%*	82%
Source : IM-Cinema Study, Market : Ahmedabad, TG: Males, 18-45, ABC *the recalls were higher after 2 weeks due to repeated cinema visits within the time period. Refer sample breakup to lend support to the above
Frequency	Total	Pre	Post
Once a month	35	32	38
Once a fortnight	24	34	14
Once a week	22	20	24
3-4 times in a year	9	6	12

Note : The aided recall levels were measured among the cinema audience only in theatres airing the commercials. Since the above research had the commercials double spotted during Cinema shows, the recalls were spectacularly high and the creative was clearly a clutter break-through one. According to our estimates, an average commercial should fetch prompted recall in the range of around 50-60% after 4 weeks of the initial exposure.

International studies conducted by CAA (Cinema Advertising Association) have suggested that the recall of cinema is almost 5 times that of TV, using identical commercials. Refer to chart IV.

Chart IV - Day After Recall - Hum se badkar kaun

Year	Brands	TV%	Cinema%	Ratio
1985	Insignia	15	74	1:5
1990	Le Box	11	51	1:5
1992	De Beers	11	53	1:5

Source : CAA, Marplan/Gallup - Admap Dec'93
Hence there is better ROI on Cinema as a medium when compared with television. Further in terms of qualitative evaluation , the same needs to be analysed.

A tool for consumer mind space evaluation - Initiative Media RADAR.

This unique international tool has the insight that the consumer has a place in his mind for every media and has assigned attributes to it. If we believe the medium is the message, then the message can be enhanced by the intrinsic nature of the medium in the eyes of the audience. IMRadar is the only tool that helps to understand the category specific communication requirements & match it with media perception of the same for better effectiveness. The study was done among married females 18-34, with children, ABC homes for a leading soap brand in Mumbai. Chart V displays how Cinema is being interpreted in the mind of the consumer in form of various attributes. Check for the relative attribute skew for each medium.[ Source: IMRADAR 2001 survey-]

Chart V - Cinema - Initiative Media Radar Perception



Concluding the above, Cinema clearly scores high in terms of attention grabbing, likeablity & above all identifying the medium with TG themselves. Hence cinema could be envisaged as a medium for the loyalty maintenance phase for mass brands as it is at this stage when the TG likes to identify the brand for themselves & cinema by virtue of the medium. Since it is an impact lead medium, the communication tends to be attention grabbing & likeable too. Generally Cinema is a planned attendance, pay to view & consider advertising an integral part of the cinema experience.

Chart VI - Highlights on the Pros & Cons of Cinema advertising

PROS CONS +Lack of clutter -Does not believe in frequency +Hign quality & resolution -Implementation & control. Need to be continuously monitoring but can be done through regular checks +Captive audience +Big screen impact

Finally media planners need to review the characteristic of Cinema at a strategic level keeping the brand-medium fit & communication task at hand. Agreed, in terms of reach, it is lower than TV but in terms of impact it is around 5 times higher. Could be the key medium to primarily reach out to the youth. It is a reach-impact medium & does not support frequency plans. Let us hope that with the introduction of multiplexes, Cinema manages to woo back its lost audiences. From an advertising perspective it makes sense to first test out cinema activity in a market and then follow it with regular implementation checks to gauge the consumer- response. Ultimately, it is the Makhna (Consumer) whom both Bade Miyan [TV] & Chote Miyan (Cinema) are trying to woo. Maybe a combination of both would work better...