In this week’s edition of the Variety Movie Commercial Tracker, powered by the TV advertising attention analytics company iSpot.tv, Twentieth Century Fox claims the top spot in spending with “Bad Times at the El Royale.”
Ads placed for the thriller had an estimated media value of $5.16 million through Sunday for 721 national ad airings on 28 networks. (Spend figures are based on estimates generated from Sept. 17-23. Estimates may be updated after the chart is posted as new information becomes available.) Twentieth Century Fox focused on reaching a male-skewing, football-loving audience, spending heavily across programming including NFL Football, College Football and South Park, and on networks such as NBC, Fox and CBS.
Just behind “Bad Times at the El Royale” in second place: Universal Pictures’ “First Man,” which saw 471 national ad airings across 24 networks, with an estimated media value of $5.02 million.
TV ad placements for Universal’s “The House With a Clock in Its Walls” (EMV: $4.43 million) and “Night School” ($4.37 million), along with Amazon Studios’ “Life Itself” ($3.98 million), round out the chart.
Notably, “First Man” has the best iSpot Attention Index (104) in the ranking, getting 4% fewer interruptions than the average movie ad (interruptions include changing the channel, pulling up the guide, fast-forwarding or turning off the TV).
Top Movie Commercials by Weekly TV Spend
$5.16M – Bad Times at the El Royale
Impressions: 223,406,767
Attention Score: 88.42
Attention Index: 68
National Airings: 721
Networks: 28
Most Spend On: NBC, FOX
Creative Versions: 7
Est. Lifetime TV Spend: $8.77M
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
Started Airing: 09/04/18
$5.02M – First Man
Impressions: 212,376,460
Attention Score: 92.43
Attention Index: 104
National Airings: 471
Networks: 24
Most Spend On: NBC, FOX
Creative Versions: 9
Est. Lifetime TV Spend: $10.65M
Studio: Universal Pictures
Started Airing: 06/08/18
$4.43M – The House With a Clock in Its Walls
Impressions: 390,547,682
Attention Score: 91.93
Attention Index: 98
National Airings: 1,179
Networks: 44
Most Spend On: ESPN, NBC
Creative Versions: 34
Est. Lifetime TV Spend: $21.31M
Studio: Universal Pictures
Started Airing: 07/13/18
$4.37M – Night School
Impressions: 252,730,499
Attention Score: 91.55
Attention Index: 94
National Airings: 763
Networks: 31
Most Spend On: NBC, ESPN
Creative Versions: 23
Est. Lifetime TV Spend: $14.28M
Studio: Universal Pictures
Started Airing: 06/05/18
$3.98M – Life Itself
Impressions: 272,807,309
Attention Score: 92.01
Attention Index: 99
National Airings: 738
Networks: 22
Most Spend On: NBC, CBS
Creative Versions: 26
Est. Lifetime TV Spend: $13.32M
Studio: Amazon Studios
Started Airing: 03/13/18
1 Movie titles with a minimum spend of $100,000 for airings detected between 09/17/2018 and 09/23/2018.
* TV Impressions – Total TV ad impressions delivered for the brand or spot.
* Attention Score – Measures the propensity of consumers to interrupt an ad play on TV. The higher the score, the more complete views. Actions that interrupt an ad play include changing the channel, pulling up the guide, fast-forwarding or turning off the TV.
* Attention Index – Represents the Attention of a specific creative or program placement vs the average. The average is represented by a score of 100, and the total index range is from 0 through 200. For example, an attention index of 125 means that there are 25% fewer interrupted ad plays compared to the average.
Variety has partnered with iSpot.tv, the real-time TV ad measurement company with attention analytics from more than eight million smart TVs, to bring you this weekly look at what studios are spending to market their movies on TV. Learn more about the iSpot.tv platform and methodology.