• by Wayne Friedman , July 28, 2005

Buoyed by the fact that national theatrical advertising is still a fast-growing advertising business--climbing at 23% to $425 million in 2004--National CineMedia, the movie theater advertising sales company, will re-launch its key 20-minute in-theater entertainment program, called "The 2wenty," as a customized program.

Cliff Marks, President of Sales and Chief Marketing Officer of National CineMedia, won't reveal the name or the concept of the show--he will only say that it will be more upscale and customized for a particular audiences, locations, and theaters.

NCM is a joint venture of three movie theater owners--Regal Entertainment Group, AMC Entertainment (which recently said it will merge with Loews Cineplex), and Cinemark USA. "The 2wenty" is NCM's key selling outlet for advertisers. NCM also sells in-theater advertising space.

By the start of next year, NCM will have over 13,000 screens. Almost 11,000 of those screens can receive digitally delivered content. Those digital screens will be the base for how NCM will customize each show by location, by audience, or by the brand-name of the theater, said Marks.

Yesterday, NCM announced it had added 20th Century Fox to its list of major entertainment advertisers. The others include Universal Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment. NCM also has two TV network partners--NBC and Turner Broadcasting. Each of NCM's entertainment partners produce two-and-a-half-minute entertainment content for "The 2wenty."

Other advertising/content time--in more mainstream 60- or 90-second messages--is sold to non-entertainment advertisers.

"This is probably our greatest growth area," said Marks. "Package goods and retailers such as Best Buy and Circuit City are advertisers." Other new NCM advertisers include Procter & Gamble, MasterCard, Kelloggs, wireless phone companies, and video game companies.

High entertainment quality is necessary to keep theater audiences interested, Marks notes. This is partly the reason that a number of major advertisers have used in-theater advertising to break their initial creative messages, including Nike, Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Co., and American Express.

One of those spots from American Express included golfer Tiger Woods in a spoof of the film "Caddyshack."

NCM is one of two major players that sells in-theater advertising. Screenvision, the other longtime seller of in-theater advertising, currently is in 14,500 screens.