Ads in movie theaters are almost unmissable, beating all other video platforms, according to a new study from Lumen, a technology company focused on attention measurement.

Commissioned by Cineplex Media, the study included 270 participants over the age of 18 in Toronto and Montreal. They were evaluated last November with Lumen’s eye-tracking technology, which establishes an attention score for cinema advertising and determines the impact brands have. Lumen also conducted a post-survey with the same participants.

The study found that 100% of the audience watches on-screen commercials while in a movie theatre, with the majority paying close attention. This applies to almost all ad lengths: 80% watch an average of 12.3 seconds of a 15-second ad, while 79% see 24 and 71 seconds of 30- and 90-second spots, respectively. Approximately, 83% watch an average of 49.9 seconds of a one-minute ad.

According to the report, cinema ranks first in terms of attention paid to advertising, with scores between 2 and 5 times higher than linear TV and connected TV. About 30% of Canadians watch 28.6 seconds of a one-minute ad on linear TV, while 17% watch 19.9 seconds of a spot with the same time on connected TV. Some 16% watch 3.6 seconds of non-skippable ads on YouTube, while 9% watch 3.2 seconds of those that can be skipped.

Lumen discovered that high cinema attention rates result in a high percentage of audiences remembering and preferring brands they see on the big screen after leaving the theatre. Seventy-five percent recall the brands they saw in the theatre, and 35% say they choose them after exposure in the cinema.

The report also showed that 35- to 49-year-olds are the ones who pay the most attention to cinema ads (82%), followed by those over 50 and 25- to 34-year-olds (79%). Nearly 74% of the 18-24 year-old audience watches ads. About 79% of Torontonians watch cinema spots, and Montreal’s bilingual audience pays equal attention to English and French ads, regardless of their language preference (81%).