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| Author | Zoe Aresti |
DCM’s fourth annual Upfronts event took place on Monday morning as guests from the worlds of media and advertising gathered in BAFTA’s Princess Anne Theatre for the latest briefing on cinema’s performance and the opportunities available in the months to come.
The morning kicked off with DCM’s CEO, Karen Stacey, addressing the room with a run through of what the company has achieved this year and that box office, admissions and adspend figures are up again after phenomenal growth in 2015.
DCM has also grown its estate in 2016 and now represents 81% of the market, and the event was used to launch the company’s new research analysis with Millward Brown and Benchmarketing, which focuses on ROI and how investing more in cinema can visibly boost campaign effectiveness.
With the tone set, the first of three keynote speakers was introduced and who better than one of DCM’s biggest clients to take to the stage? Andrew Mortimer, Director of Media at Sky UK’s presentation focused on how the broadcaster has had to change the way it interacts with and entertains its customers over the years and continues to innovate with new online and streaming services that tap into its rich archive of content.
He summed up by saying that cinema was a great place for Sky to communicate with its customers through a shared love of film and encouraged advertisers to “After TV, look to the big screen rather than the small screen”.
Sally Dickerson, MD of Benchmarketing – a division of OMG – was up next to give the audience a detailed but brief breakdown of how DCM’s latest research analysis, Building Box Office Brands II, was undertaken and offered insight into the econometrics.
Among the findings was that cinema is currently underutilised and that most categories only invest a very small share of media spend, however higher levels of return for the campaign are achievable if cinema is increased.
Miles Carter, Creative at adam&eveDDB, has worked on memorable Christmas campaigns such as #WinChristmas for Mulberry and last year’s #ManOnTheMoon for John Lewis and in his presentation at DCM Upfronts, focused on the Power of Storytelling, he took the room through some principles he values when going about his creative work including three main things to remember:
Stand for something
Know more about your audience
Be the brand
He concluded by playing some of his inspiring commercials on the big screen.
No DCM Upfronts event would be quite complete without a preview of the fantastic film content we have to look forward to in 2017. Head of Film, Tom Linay, took the audience through the standout titles that are sure to build on the tremendous success of this year including a string of sequels and some exciting originals planned for the slate.
To see photos from the event, visit DCM's Facebook page. Read how DCM Upfronts was covered on Campaign, Marketing Week and Mediatel.