It’s not supposed to be this way. Hard to reach younger audiences are meant to be all about YouTube, Netflix and social video but the box office is stubbornly holding its cultural relevance to the younger set.

Indeed, with big recent hits like The Joker, an ongoing love for action movies and upcoming franchise updates from the likes of Star Wars over summer, Val Morgan Managing Director, Guy Burbidge, says cinema is staking a claim as the trigger for many water-cooler conversations, instead of television.

“There’s little mainstream understanding that younger audiences are still piling into cinema. We already know 72 per cent of The Joker’s audience is under 30. 77 per cent of 14-24 years will be in cinemas next year says Burbidge.

“But we’re not really in that consideration set yet for brands who are targeting younger audiences. The market has changed significantly, even in the past two years, youth audiences are migrating out of ad supported media into ad free SVOD services, streaming services. They block, scroll and fast-forward. Youth audiences are getting harder to reach. They are becoming the unreachables.

“Given the fragmentation of media, time-shifting and streaming of TV, cinema is now the de facto water-cooler moment for the digital age,” he says. “It is arguably one of the most effective brand building tools available to marketers that consistently delivers mass reach within demographics where other channels are beginning to fail.

"We’ve got to make sure we’re front and centre. Our thinking is around effectiveness and we’re going to be measuring this significantly next year with some proof points in market around putting cinema on the plan with those other channels like YouTube and social. You can’t make a large-scale audio-visual impact in a relevant setting without us.”

Burbidge says cinema can guarantee its audience numbers and guarantee that cinemagoers will not be distracted by anything else other than what’s on the big screen. To boot, the under 30s actually like the ads. A study by Kantar Millward Brown found that 16-34s (and particularly Gen Z, a demographic born into the age of fragmentation) like cinema ads more  than any other format.

“Perhaps that is because they have grown up with poor quality digital ads, installed ad blockers to filter out annoying, irrelevant marketing and cut the cord on their TV in order to watch ad-free services,” says Burbidge. “But inside an immersive experience, with high production values and phones in their pockets for a whole two hours, younger audiences are re-connecting with brands.

Cinema’s growth – particularly with younger audiences – is a global phenomenon. In the UK, audiences are at near 50-year highs, with 16-34 year olds making up the single largest demographic.

Worldwide, cinema is set to become the fastest growing ad medium next year, according to Zenith, as digital channels mature and struggle to shake off trust and privacy issues.

Reach more young Australians

Burbidge says Australian cinemas are witnessing similar audience growth, particularly in the under 30s demographic, up 7 per cent last year and forecast to increase 10-12 per cent this year, based on our admissions data.

“Over two years, that is a significant strengthening of our ability to reach younger audiences,” says Burbidge. “We don’t see many other channels adding those numbers.”

So, in 2020 Val Morgan plans to demonstrate to advertisers just how effective cinema is at putting brands in front of people who have become increasingly difficult to reach.

Metrics of success

Burbidge does acknowledge cinema needs to shift its language and metrics. “We recognise that cinema needs to stop talking about box office dollars and better communicate its ability to reach key demographics, as we can robustly demonstrate through our loyalty-powered CineTAM audience measurement platform,” he says.

“We also intend to keep communicating that we guarantee our audiences, taking the risk out of delivery, while continuing to talk in terms – such as TARPS – that better enable marketers to understand who they are reaching and what they are paying for.”

Such as 2.35 million under 30 admits for Avengers Endgame and a TARP of 23 for males 18-39 in its first week. Or 1.5 million under 30s within three weeks of The Joker opening.

Christmas presents

Ahead of plans for 2020, Burbidge says brands should consider the immediate opportunity presented by the Christmas period. Films such as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will drive massive audiences at precisely the time when TV ratings officially end for the year. And when a lot of people will still have presents to buy.

And for marketers that may still need convincing, the average cinema screen is 45 feet in length.

“That means we can make your logo 980 per cent larger than the average TV set,” says Burbidge.