Six Flags at the Movies

[rjholla2003]

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=457889&category=BUSINESS&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=3/7/2006

Ads give Six Flags a starring role at theaters
Parent of The Great Escape inks deal to place customized spots on movie screens this summer
 
By KEVIN HARLIN, Business writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Tuesday, March 7, 2006

The Great Escape and Splashwater Kingdom is coming to a theater near you.

Theme park operator Six Flags Inc., owner of Queensbury's Great Escape, has signed a deal that will get commercials in front of audiences at 69 area screens during the 20-minute pre-movie shows.

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Six Flags will also be advertising inside the lobbies, and theater clerks will hand out promotional materials with tickets.

It's the latest effort by new management to turn the struggling theme park operator around.

"Summer is the sweet spot of the movie-going season -- and it's also peak season for Six Flags theme parks," Mark Shapiro, Six Flags' president and chief executive, said in a written statement.

Six Flags signed the deal with National CineMedia, the marketing arm of the nation's largest three cinema chains, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark USA, and Regal Entertainment Group.

Regal is the dominant theater operator in the Capital Region, with screens at Crossgates Mall, Latham Circle Mall, Wilton Mall, Aviation Mall, Clifton Park Center and Rensselaer County Plaza. The ads will be shown there, and at the Regal theater at the Berkshire Mall, in Lanesborough, Mass.

National CineMedia said the pieces will run in June and July on 11,000 theater screens nationwide, each within a 150-mile radius of one of Six Flags' roughly 30 theme parks. Short programs customized to the nearest park will be worked into the FirstLook program -- formerly called The Twenty. The program, which is usually playing as patrons file into their seats, contains short pieces on upcoming movies, and interviews with stars, interspersed with commercials.

But Lauren Leff, vice president of communications with Denver-based National CineMedia, said this deal marks the first time customized programming was being developed around a specific advertiser.

Six Flags and the theaters did not disclose the terms of the deal.

Ads at the movie theater aren't going away anytime soon.

Advertising forecasters at New York City-based ZenithOptimedia predicted in December that spending on in-theater ads would grow by about 15 percent each year through 2008.

Six Flags lost almost $465 million in 2004, though it was $28.1 million in the black through the end of September 2005.

In December, the company's new chairman, Dan Snyder, principal owner of the Washington Redskins, brought former ESPN programming director Mark Shapiro in as chief executive.

In February, Six Flags unveiled a $43 million hotel and indoor water park -- its first -- across Route 9 from The Great Escape.

[ChuckR]

I remember in the summer of 2003 they had commercials before movies that showed advertisements for S:UF. There making good moves left and right.