The drums of the $20 billion+ video upfront market are starting to beat quietly, but the sound will soon get even louder. National Cinemedia was one of the first video retailers to pick up a stick and test the kit. The company plans to introduce new products to the market in hopes of securing a larger share of advertising spend.
Digiday has learned that for the first time, NCM will offer a guaranteed business outcome to advertisers who put up their money upfront. Sales targets are agreed between her NCM sellers and clients, and 'substitutes' or additional advertising inventory are provided if targets are not met.
NCM executives also explained that the largest movie advertising business, which emerged from bankruptcy last year, will provide ad inventory across programmatic SSPs starting with Exchange Place and eventually expanding to other platforms. Mike Rosen, chief revenue officer at NCM, said advertisers can now target specific demographics, DMAs, postal codes, time of day and time of day through private marketplaces.
“This will open up the market to the long tail of advertisers who don’t buy directly and who have very specific, data-driven needs about how they approach media spend from a variety of budgets. “We can actually scale it up,” he said. Rosen. “What the programmatic marketplace really needs more of is expanding the reach of premium videos in particular. There's just a limit to what's available through those pipes.”
Rosen added that he expects to see a significant increase in the number of advertisers using NCM, as everything from top of the funnel brand awareness to performance-focused initiatives can be accessed through programmatic means. .
To make this point squarely to advertisers, NCM is also developing its own research that highlights its advantages in attracting viewer attention compared to other video media, says Insights/Analytics and Sales Data Strategist. Manu Singh, Senior Vice President, explained. Work by Lumen Research on behalf of NCM has resulted in significant increases in attention across Automotive, Pharmaceuticals and Insurance, with films increasing their average length by 17% to: 25.5 seconds per 30.
“It doesn't matter if you have your own first-party dataset or if you're a walled garden, it's that simple,” Singh says. “Brand, you've put a lot of effort into your brand's messaging and put together a creative ad.” [using] Many studies report that you can get your message across beautifully in 30 or 15 seconds.Don't you want to know if people are watching it? We decided [with the research] To move in that direction. ”
In another level of leveraging attention, NCM said it will also offer an attention rating guarantee to some clients in upfront trading, allowing advertisers to trade on Adelaide's AU metrics. The idea is to be able to compare quality equally across premium videos.
Clients are taking note of the additional tools that NCM is bringing to market.
As an example, Ron Amlan, Senior Director of Global Media A Mars, is using Adelaide's Attention Ratings offer to encourage marketers to adopt more attention-related metrics in their toolboxes. I am. “NCM's significant investment in Attention Metrics in collaboration with Adelaide will enable us to more effectively link NCM's media coverage to business success,” Amran said. said there are no additional costs yet. “In general, we want to identify higher quality media placements so we can plan and buy them more efficiently.”
Similarly, Brad Audette, CMO of Mazda's North American operations, said he is impressed with NCM's investment in data and insights. He cited a campaign conducted by NCM in the fourth quarter of 2023 that showed foot traffic to Mazda dealerships increased by “significantly” by 22% during the study period, with 69% of visits being advertised in-store. I pointed out that this happened within 5 days of seeing it. theater.
“Not only did we find that the movie theater met meaningful KPIs for Mazda, but we also found that more than half of the audience (53%) was within eight miles of the theater,” Ode said. “We were thrilled with the results. The evolution of movie advertising means we can expect meaningful data analysis and performance KPIs from big-screen campaigns. We see it as an important media platform to drive awareness.”
Marianne Rush, Indeed's senior media manager, has even found that the value of the film's upper funnel extends to catering to some of its more diverse audiences.
“Film is an important part of our brand strategy, especially in support of Indeed's Rising Voices program,” said Rush, whose partnership with Lena Waithe and Hillman Grado has created a platform for BIPOC filmmakers. said they were given the opportunity to share their perspectives on the future of work. “We are entering the fourth year of the program and are building on notable successes through our media mix model, including double-digit increases in standalone consideration and brand favorability, and positive ROAS.”
Rush added that Indeed will continue the series this summer.
