REVEALED: The Silver Screen’s unskippable adverts triumph as UK’s most favoured format

Advertisements shown at the start of movie theatre screenings have shown to be the most effective form of marketing, a new study has revealed.

Conducted by advertising experts N.Rich, research using public opinion data sourced from YouGov revealed that 36% of British adults favour adverts played before a movie screening – and are more likely to pay attention to their content – than adverts on other platforms such as radio, billboard and streaming services.

Television comes a close second, with one in four (26%) saying that they would actively pay attention to adverts shown during breaks in programming.

Along with billboard advertising, ads displayed on streaming services are the least favoured, with 70% of the UK’s population unable to resist the temptation of the “Skip Ads” button. Despite being a lesser-favoured format, radio advertising outperforms streaming advertising, with an overall one in five British adults stating that they actively pay attention to radio ads.

How likely are you to actively pay attention to advertising on these platforms? (UK overall)

Despite the general popularity of smartphones and smart devices – especially among younger generations – the average attention span of a Millennial has been recorded at around 12 seconds, while for Gen Z that figure sinks to a lesser eight seconds.

Yet with almost three quarters (73%) of Brits aged 18-24 claiming they pay less attention to streaming adverts, and over half (56%) favouring cinema advertising, it may not be a matter of attention span, so much as ad content, relevance and – of course – the lack of being able to hit a “skip” button or change the channel or station.

In fact, favouritism for cinema advertising trends across all ages, with the exception of those aged 65+, who, despite leaning towards televised adverts, are the least swayed by advertising on any platforms.

Commenting on the findings, a spokesperson for N.Rich states: “Above the unskippable nature of cinema advertising, the content and relevance of ads displayed on specific platforms play an integral role in their effectiveness. Predominantly, cinema advertising focuses on the very thing the paying customer is there to see – a film release. This is a far more difficult thing to replicate across other platforms, where the context and relevance are not always within the control of the advertiser.”