• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 18, 2009

Cinema advertising has enjoyed a string of good news recently. The latest comes from a study commissioned by Screenvision that found the medium has a bigger emotional pull than almost any other for certain desirable demographics.

The data also suggests definite affinities for specific media among devotees of certain brands.

The new study from NewMediaMetrics ranked various media by the degree of "emotional attachment" they generated in core consumer groups for various high-profile products. "Emotional attachment" was measured by the attention given to different media by consumers. Thus, consumers who focus intently on ad messages delivered by one medium are said to be highly attached to that medium, while distracted, wandering attention indicates a low level of attachment.

According to NMM, high-scoring media would probably be effective for related products. (That is, "high-attachment" media could also serve competitors in the same product categories.) For example, NMM found that cinema advertising enjoyed a high degree of emotional attachment among Xbox owners, suggesting that cinema ads would also be effective vehicles for new games, upgrades and an array of Xbox accessories.

What's more, NMM found that emotional attachment to the Xbox brand increased in conjunction with emotional attachment to cinema advertising, with members of the core consumer group showing a high probability of scoring 9 out of 10 on both scales. In short, the more a consumer liked Xbox, the more (on average) they liked cinema advertising.

Overall, consumers who bought electronics equipment in the last six months were 45% more emotionally attached to cinema advertising than they were to 16 other out-of-home advertising subcategories; the number rose to 59% among Xbox devotees.

The NMM study also found that cinema advertising produced greater emotional attachment than TV advertising for consumer groups such as frequent JC Penney shoppers, who were 25% more emotionally attached to cinema ads than TV.

Cinema advertisers have commissioned a number of studies highlighting the effectiveness of their medium -- often through comparison with TV. In February, the Cinema Advertising Council revealed the results of an IMMI study which found that combined cinema and TV ad campaigns more than doubled the conversion rate and lift compared to a TV-only campaign.

Tracking the results of three ad campaigns for cable TV shows, IMMI found that only 10.1% of subjects exposed to a TV-only campaign watched the show's premiere, versus 22.7% for combined TV and cinema campaigns. Later, 24.7% of the former group went on to watch any episode of the show, versus 49.5% of the latter.