The average movie theater has approximately 200 to 300 seats filled with local residents, business owners, and future tenants, making it prime real estate (pun intended) to kick off a unique property marketing campaign. Cinema advertising, or the local advertisements that run before a movie screening, are a powerful way to increase exposure for your multi-family property without needing to do a ton of work. Movie theaters bring the community together in the same way a census or sample group might, making them an ideal place to test and target potential customer personas and tenant personalities. Here’s why:

1. Cinema advertising is hyper-local: In most cases, people attending movie theaters live, work, shop, and play near by. With the exception of specialty theater experiences, such as mega-IMAX theaters or novelty concepts such as CineBistory, most theaters attract customers who live within a 15-30 mile radius of their location. If not less. If your goal is to expose potential residents to your multi-family property, you can literally handpick the neighborhood you want to target by advertising in theaters nearby that location or in neighborhoods with similar, complementary socioeconomic compositions.

2. Location, location, location: If your multi-family property is near the theater you’re advertising in, you also have the opportunity to showcase the local amenities of that area. Most movie theaters are near malls, shopping plazas, and walking promenades, serving as an anchor for local stores and restaurants. Appealing to potential residents may start with your property itself … but your building is supported by the amenities, walkability, and comfort of the neighborhood itself. Use your cinema advertising to highlight the experience they are already enjoying and how you fit into that pleasant moment and future memories.

3. Cinema advertising is more customizable than you think: The average consumer tends to self-select into neighborhoods and locations that fit their lifestyle, which is why carefully placed cinema advertising can make your property marketing can feel personal, even in a crowded movie theater. Even though your ad may not appeal to every person in the theater, you can make fairly informed assumptions about your target audience based on the location of the theater, type of experience the establishment offers, ticket price point, and movie selection itself. Don’t be afraid to get specific in your ads. The more targeted your messaging, the more likely it is that your audience will remember the ad and act on it later.

4. There’s nothing quite like a captive audience: We hate to say it, but cinema advertising is impactful in part because audiences can’t escape the repetition of and exposure to these ads. Even with the prevalence of smartphones and digital devices in the theater, pre-movie footage and advertising is somewhat inescapable for the average movie goer. Cinema advertising gives you the opportunity to drive your message home without investing tons of money in local television and radio ads, and as more and more people switch to streaming music options and cable-free television providers, understanding and adopting these opportunities will be an important part of local advertisers’ success.

Let us help you understand how your property marketing plan might benefit from cinema advertising today. We’ll work with you to tailor your budget against your desired exposure, ideal tenant, and other marketing initiatives to find the perfect balance of budget, local partnerships, and creative content to take your multi-family property marketing to the next level. Click here to learn more about our services and case studies on how we’ve helped local businesses like you in the past. Then contact us to see how we can help you, too.