• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 12, 2008

Advertisers looking past big screens and concession stands for glances that leave a mark on moviegoers have a new tool. National CineMedia (NCM), the company formed by AMC, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas to support pre-show theater advertising, has plans to install an interactive advertising platform in theater lobbies across the United States to entice consumers into spending idle time with brands.

Reactrix Systems' STEPscape Media Network, an interactive advertising platform, allows consumers to step on and move projected images of popcorn, M&Ms and Coca-Cola. The system will integrate with NCM's digital cinema projection network, which relies on computer hard drives to project onto the screen pre-show ads digitally rather than film.

The initial rollout in 50 theater lobbies begins this fall in the Top 10 markets, such as Los Angeles and New York. About 30 platforms already have been installed in NCM regional affiliate theaters across the country, which the company will support. "If this is successful, we hope to roll out the system in other theaters, either NCM owned or affiliates," says Cliff Marks, NCM president of sales and marketing. "We also may add the Reactrix's wall units."

Marks expects the Reactrix platform to attract automotive, video game manufacturers, retailers, and consumer packaged goods companies, many of whom buy ad space at theaters today. NCM will support the technology, along with selling advertisements and marketing the ad network of 80 locations offering the service. The theater chain will take responsibility for sales and marketing the units, rather than relying on the dozen employees in Reactrix's ad sales department.

NCM's technicians will support the Reactrix application remotely from the company's network operations center in Denver, Colo., similar to the way it monitors pre-show advertising on theater screens in projection rooms and plasma displays in lobbies.

In movie projection rooms, ads are matched with movie content, whether rated PG or R, from the network center in Denver. "I can assure you that everything we do in the lobby will be appropriate for families," he says. "The beauty of digital advertising is that we can customize messages to different screening rooms. We can remotely send one type car ad to a G-rated movie and another to an R-rated movie."

Digitally customized messages are possible. NCM has the ability to transmit unique ad signals to different lobbies because each device wired to the network has its own Internet protocol (IP) address. It's probable that an advertiser will run one spot on Monday in Dallas, for example, and another in Miami.