News
Search Ads Priced High for Films
By Robert Marich
July 15, 2008 – Internet search ad campaigns are often prohibitively expensive for movies because pricing by search giant Google offers low rates to repeat customers, which movies are not. As Marketing to Moviegoers explains, each movie is a new product with a short shelf life in theaters.
A story in Advertising Age says: “Consider the cost of bidding on the most popular actress of this summer’s film season. If you're a first-time bidder on the term ‘Angelina Jolie,’ it can run up to $5 per click -- a little steep to justify for a marketer hawking a $10 movie ticket.”
Google pricing is often tied to how often an ad is clicked and how relevant it is to the website to which it is linked. That sounds like it’s conceived to enhance consumer experience, but it simply means de facto volume discounts to advertisers with repetitive ads, which excludes movies.
The Ad Age article by Abbey Klasssen adds that “user searches for a movie star’s name doesn’t mean that he or she is interested in a commercial search. And there are cases where bidding on simply a talent’s name without any other terms is unwise. Consider Jack Black, who’s starred in two recent films: Kung Fu Panda and Tropic Thunder -- movies that appeal to vastly different audiences."
Movie advertisers consistently pay the highest rates in media, whether newspapers or TV, where broadcast networks tack on premiums to guarantee the ads are not pre-empted. That all stems from movie marketers not having the flexibility of consumer goods products and other categories, where products remain on retail shelves and there's no urgency for pin-point delivery of customers.
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