The World Wide Web as a Vehicle for Advertising Movies to College Students: An Exploratory Study

Through a survey of college-age moviegoers, this study found movie promotion websites are the second most attractive form of advertising compared to traditional media. The respondents perceived TV movie ads as the most attractive, but they looked beyond what they saw on TV. Their passive reception of the movie ads on TV turned to active seeking of information on the web. Among all promotion devices on the web, trailers are the most attractive to college-age moviegoers, followed by pictures, critic reviews, stories, and games. The major motives to visit a movie promotion website were to get detailed information not available through other media and to compare movies to decide which movie to see. The findings suggest as consumers spend more time online than watching TV and new technology development accelerates the trend, movie promotion websites are likely to gain the status of mainstream vehicle for movie advertising. © 2005, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.