New opportunities for cinema advertising are being created by the take up of digital technology, claims Saturn Communications Group Ltd. The company has developed Connectvision, a digital hub that connects the box office, concessions and digital projectors enabling remote downloading and scheduling of advertisements.

For the first time, operators are able to bring together a wide range of digital information formats to provide everything from up-to-the-second movie information and availability, to customised auditorium presentations for children’s parties to corporate events. It allows cinema operators to take advantage of a new dynamic in cinema advertising.

The flexibility of Connectvision gives the cinema operator the opportunity to create schedules specifically for a particular audience. Information can be changed at will by the cinema owner to allow for promotions of offers and events taking place within the cinema throughout the day. Connectvision also allows national operators and their media agencies to work more closely. Advertising campaigns and promotions can be co-ordinated from a central point using easy to create schedules, which can be then distributed to an entire cinema network within seconds.

“Connectvision is a dynamic multimedia messaging service that can take information from a variety of sources and display it anywhere within the cinema” says Chris Welsh, managing director of Saturn Communications Group Ltd.

Until now cinema and concessions advertising has been relatively untapped. In 2004, the advertising industry spent just £150 million in the UK, yet the potential for growth is enormous as multiplexes and Independent operators roll out digital technology. Saturn, leading supplier of Box Office Software, has developed Cinemavision especially for cinema advertising and digital presentations.

With digital technology, adverts will be easier and more cost efficient to produce and distribute, offering whole new opportunities for local businesses who perhaps previously had not considered cinema advertising. It would also improve the standard of existing local advertising in cinemas, replacing the notoriously tacky 35mm slides used by local advertisers on a budget. Concessions within the cinema will be able to display any special offers more effectively, something that has already proved to be successful in boosting sales.

Connectvision is a Windows based package for delivering a wide range of digital formats including: JPG, BMP, TIF and multimedia files such as digital video MPEG, AVI, MOV, PowerPoint Files, Macromedia Flash Files, Macromedia Director Files and HTML Web Pages.