Escapes, an update from the inside.
Deep in the development phase, we have been out in the industry discussing Escapes for a few months now. Currently over 100 cinemas have signed up already, Film Submissions are coming in, brand testing is underway and one of the key talking points has naturally been around audiences.
As a reminder, Escapes is supported by BFI & National Lottery. It is a long term & nationwide audience development strategy designed to support and sustain cinema audiences UK wide by cultivating new audiences.
“By definition these are audiences who will not buy tickets to selected movies and do not attend participating cinemas.”
Some of the big talking points have been :
How are we going to try and engage audiences who are currently not engaging?
How are we going to ensure this doesn’t simply cannibalise existing audiences?
All key to our approach and fundamental areas we are working on in development. We have been sharing how Escapes will not cannibalise existing audiences due to capped ticket redemptions and targeted paid adverts to audiences who do not engage with cinema. By definition these are audiences who will not buy tickets to selected movies and do not attend participating cinemas.
We have also now revealed that targeted adverts will be directed to 25-44 C2D audiences within a physical catchment to all participating cinemas.
These audiences will be attracted by our Escapes branding, positioning and the lure of “taking a break” for FREE. We are testing this branding with audiences currently and all this will be supported with media and brand partnerships prioritising the same audiences.
In addition, there will only be a single Escapes screening per “target region” per film. Ie. Escapes will launch a hyper local advertising strategy (at scale) that will drive circa 100 people per screening per region with a heavy weighting on those who do not engage with cinema.
Audiences will be capped via limited tickets and data will be captured on all audience members.
Directly after each screening, these new audiences will be provided with sharable tools to drive paying audiences from within in their peer groups to selected films in participating cinemas. Strategies are in development but an example of this could be pre populated, sharable WhatsApp posts saying “I loved this film, you should check it out (link to on-sale tickets)
“ This project is like no other before it and our approach is to create a national conversation around the escapism of cinema at scale”
The project will align with the funding principles set out in the BFI National Lottery funding strategy: equity, diversity, inclusion, UK-wide reach, and environmental sustainability.
We will continue to share updates here but to learn more, visit escapetothecinema.co.uk.