Film is an audio-visual medium of communication and offers wide opportunities to the advertiser to screen commercial films and slides produced by them. Today cinema is an important and effective media of advertising. Suitable short films may be prepared to create a lasting impression upon the audience. These may be presented in the form of a story or a cartoon. Through the merits of the product are presented to the audience effectively. Such films may be shown before the start of the feature film or during interval.
At present there are three kinds of films used as media of advertising :
1. Straight Advertising Films : These are most common now-adays. These concentrate on advertising message relating to only one product of a particular company. These are of short duration lasting from 3 to 5 minutes.
2. Documentary Films : Documentary films are mainly used for publicity aspect and in most cases is educative in character. They are used to show various aspects of an industry as a whole.
3. Sponsored Advertising Films : It is a very good combination of advertisement and entertainment. Cartoon films come under this category.
Video Advertising - It is now considered as the latest media of advertising. Under this method, video-cassettes ad-films are prepared.
Advantages of Film and Video Advertising
1. It has a quite wide coverage.
2. It is able to explain and demonstrate the use of a product quite conveniently.
3. Appeal is made to all sections of the society.
4. It is never wasted as no advertisement can escape the attention.
5. It is effective and may pay rich dividend to the advertiser.
Disadvantages of Film and Video Advertising
1. The films are too short and need changes frequently.
2. Production cost of a film is quite high.
3. The audience may not like to waste time in seeing such films repeatedly. They resent to it as they come for entertainment only.
4. Restrictions are imposed against screening of films, e.g., there is censoring.
5. For screening films, the cooperation of theaters is a must which is not easily available.
