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| Author | Zoe Aresti |
Campaign’s Media360 event took place in Brighton last week connecting some of the greatest minds in media for two days of talks, hub sessions and networking on the South Coast.
The weather wasn’t as good as last year but that didn’t put a dampener on the agenda at The Grand Hotel and DCM took part in two sessions over Thursday and Friday.
The first saw Sales Director, Davina Barker, take to the stage alongside a panel to discuss how the digital era has transformed the way media owners have adapted before Tom Linay, DCM’s Head of Film, put forward the case for cinema in this year’s popular Media360 Challenge.
Representing as well as cinema this year were print, outdoor, social, radio, TV and mobile, and each presenter had five minutes to win the audience over with their pitch (see the full line-up here).
Tom was fifth in line and started his presentation with a quote from Sir John Hegarty: “Great advertising and communication becomes a part of culture. Surely a brand wants to be part of culture?” before elaborating and applying context to the line.
“Cinema is great at creating cultural moments” he said. “It creates moments that move people, that make you laugh, cry, recoil in horror or give you a warm fuzzy feeling. These moments transcend generations, they’re moments that people talk about when they get together. We know cinema is one of the key drivers of conversation online and it creates genuine watercooler moments.”
Tom mentioned how his experiences with cinema growing up – including memorable trips to see E.T, Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters – have all contributed to how he sees cinema now as one of the most impactful mediums for creating emotional moments.
He then went on to speak about Spielberg and how he had inspired him with the quote: “You walk into a theatre. You’re lifted by it… And all of us go into a kind of lock-step where the audience is just galvanised, almost hypnotised, all watching the same things, all knowing where to look at the exact same time… it’s a wonderful thing. There is nothing greater than that.”
The presentation went on to apply that to how brands can tap into the unique environment just how Orange and EE have done in previous years as well as brands such as VW with its See Film Differently idents making the brand synonymous with independent cinema.
That brought the theme up to today and how cinema is currently thriving, with admissions in the first four months of the year up 13%, the biggest number since 1971, and ad revenue up 8% in 2016, highlighting that brands are believing in the power of the big screen.
Tom performed his presentation in the iconic REDRUM sweater from The Shining and quipped that although the rest of the Media360 conference had been data focused, all he could think about was The Goonies character with the same name much to the amusement of the audience. He then offered a rundown of the big films still to come in 2017, including Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049, Paddington 2 and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
Cinema faced stiff competition from radio and TV in the end, with radio just edging it after an audience vote, but delegates left the room with a great sense of how the year is shaping up to be one of the most exciting for the medium and that the big screen is a brilliant place to create iconic cultural moments through great branded creativity.