Understanding Attention in the Cinema Environment

Val Morgan Cinema has long recognised cinema as a high-impact advertising channel, offering an immersive experience that captures audience engagement. However, to provide advertisers with a clearer understanding of cinema’s true value, Val Morgan Cinema sought a way to quantify how attention is distributed across the pre-show, individual ads, and different audience segments. While the assumption was that cinema delivered high engagement, they needed concrete, data-backed insights to validate this and support strategic media planning.

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Solution:

Measuring Attention with Amplified

To gain unparalleled insight into audience engagement, Val Morgan Cinema partnered with Amplified to conduct an industry-first attention measurement study using Amplified’s gold-standard eye-tracking technology. The goal was to measure real human attention within the cinema environment, without disrupting the natural viewing experience to maximise the validity of the insights.

By leveraging Amplified's research capabilities, the study was able to provide granular detail on audience behaviour throughout the pre-show, allowing Val Morgan Cinema to assess attention levels across different ad durations, demographics, and positions within the order.

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Execution:

Capturing Real Human Attention in Cinema

Through a completely natural and immersive human measurement experience, Amplified used its market leading capabilities to:

  • Utilise gaze and eye-tracking technology to capture audience interaction
  • Track audience attention levels across individual ads
  • Measure variations in engagement by demographic, ad duration, and ad position

The results of which enabled Val Morgan Cinema to gain deeper insight into how audiences interact with cinema advertising, helping them to position cinema’s role within a broader media mix with greater clarity and confidence.

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Outcome:

A Clearer View on Cinema’s Attention Strength

The results provided Val Morgan Cinema with valuable, data-driven insights that confirmed cinema’s unique ability to hold audience attention. Through this study, Val Morgan Cinema was able to determine that:

  • Cinema ads sustain high levels of active attention across their entire duration, in contrast to other AV channels where attention often declines
  • Attention remains consistent throughout the entire pre-show, reinforcing that audiences are engaged from start to finish
  • Attention levels vary across ad duration and break position, offering advertisers actionable insights on optimal ad placement strategies.

For Val Morgan Cinema, these findings reinforced the premium nature of cinema advertising, offering an objective measure of its ability to deliver sustained, high-quality attention. These insights provide advertisers with a stronger framework for channel selection, helping them assess cinema’s true value relative to other AV media options.

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Benchmarking Media Through the Lens of Attention

“With a detailed understanding of how channels are viewed, headline costs can be benchmarked against actual value, far more relevant to objectives and outcomes. This enables more robust and meaningful comparisons about both role and position of channels, enabling the strengths of media formats to be leveraged for maximum effect.“

‍– Guy Burbidge – Managing Director, Val Morgan Cinema

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Elevating Cinema’s Role in the Attention Economy

For Val Morgan Cinema, attention measurement has provided a new level of insight into cinema’s advertising impact. By working with Amplified and leveraging their bespoke research services, they have been able to quantify the full value of attention in the cinema space, helping advertisers make more informed, data-driven media decisions.

Interested in measuring attention for your campaigns? Get in touch to learn more about how Amplified is helping brands and media owners quantify real human engagement.

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