Movie attendance thrives in recession

Jenni Critchfield: People look to the cinema as a means of escape from their everyday lives.

"Customer service remains a key focus for us as we strive to bring down queue times,” comments Fiaz Mahomed, CEO, of Ster-Kinekor Theatres. “One of the new offerings we have is making the full listing and show times available on mobiles by simply typing in www.sterkinekor.com on either platform."

According to Scarborough Research, "people who frequently see movies are also much more likely to invest their money in higher-end entertainment technology and services, as well as cars and travel services." In addition to this Nielsen Media Research has discovered that "moviegoers remember advertising messages as much as five to six times better than they do TV advertisements."

Cinema advertising is said to offer an ever-increasing, directly targeted, influential, trend setting and most importantly captive audience to cinema advertisers. In addition, it has claimed to have proven to be one of the most cost-effective methods of advertising as advertising wastage is minimised. Client brands have the opportunity to stand out from the rest of everyday advertising clutter and leave a lasting impression with the audience.

"The past 12 months have been really exciting for cinema owners as audiences have flocked to see great movies such as Mama Mia, Mr Bones 2, Harry Potter 6 and just about everything in 3D such as Ice Age 3 which has become one of the highest grossing 3D titles to date,” concludes Mahomed.

Jenni Critchfield, CEO of Cinemark comments, "Historically the medium of cinema has been one which has thrived during recessions as people look for ways in which to escape from their everyday lives for a few hours, and we feel that the continuing releases of 3D blockbuster movies such as Up and Avatar will continue to draw in audiences."