• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 26, 2012

Just as the holiday movie season kicks into high gear, the cinema ad industry is unveiling its most substantive research to date showing that commercials played in movie theaters substantially boost both brand recall and likeability. The analysis, which was commissioned by NCM Media Networks, is based on eight years of data derived from tens of thousands of consumers evaluating the same ads viewed on TV and in cinema via Nielsen’s IAG service.

While the study indicates that cinema ads were overall more effective in generating recall and likeability than TV ads alone, NCM Senior Vice President-Strategic Insight and Analytics Doug Pulick says the real point is that the two media work best in combinations.

While that in itself is not surprising -- Pulick notes there is already an ample body of media research proving the complementary effects of multiple media -- he says the new analysis reveals that there is an especially complementary effect of combining two “sight, sound and motion” media like TV and cinema. The broad reach of television, he says, is great at generating awareness, but the cinematic nature of commercials in movie theaters boosts engagement levels.

The bottom line, he says, is “buy TV for the reach,” but utilize cinema to “reinforce what is being said on television.”

The analysis, which is based on more than 22,000 consumer responses for cinema ads across 29 product categories, shows that combinations of TV and cinema, on average, generated a 65% lift in brand recall and a 94% boost in message recall.