There’s bad news for those of you who like to actually have conversations with your movie-going companions. At least one company is looking to monetize your free time, especially if you get to the theater early to secure good seats.
“Screenvision, which sells and programs in-cinema advertising, wants to spice up the preshow experience. Last week, the company unveiled its plans for a redesigned 20-minute ‘advertainment’ block to marketers in a private presentation in New York. Consumers — Screenvision says it reaches 45 million moviegoers a month — will start to see it at local cinemas in September.”
For me, the central lesson of this age of modern media is that anything can be advertised anywhere, and it’s no use fighting it. Still, the pre-show advertising reel — the ads that come before the trailers — have always struck me as an invasion of privacy. The time that I spend before the trailers belongs to me; the only reason I get to the theater early is because I have to work around the theater’s inability to guarantee me a good seat. To have that time intruded upon by loud, obnoxious advertising is infuriating.
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