NCM Rebrands, Introduces E!'s Maria Menounos as the New Face of
FirstLook
Upfront Event Highlights NCM as the Top Millennial Growth Network and
Features Enhanced Moviegoer Targeting Before, During and After the Movie
NEW YORK & CENTENNIAL, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
National CineMedia (NCM)
presented its fourth annual upfront event at the AMC Lincoln Square
theater in New York today, showing advertisers why it truly is America's
Movie Network.
Maria Menounos will be the new face of America's Movie Network as the host of NCM's FirstLook pre-show program, seen by over 700 million moviegoers a year. (Photo: Business Wire)
NCM - America's Movie Network
NCM kicked off its presentation with some branding of its own, launching
a new look and feel for the largest cinema advertising network in the
U.S. Designed by NCM's internal creative agency, the company's new logo
calls to mind the projected beam of light that delivers the magic of the
movies onto the big screen, while the new positioning of NCM as
America's Movie Network reflects the company's distinctive role in
connecting brands with movies that shape our culture and the national
conversation.
Cliff Marks, NCM's President of Sales and Marketing, explained, "Movies
drive the social conversation — they are woven into the fabric of our
culture. As we looked more closely at the video universe in which we
compete and the value we offer to our advertising partners, we asked
ourselves, ‘Who are we? What is unique about the NCM value proposition
to advertisers?' And it became clear that NCM is America's Movie Network
— we're one of the biggest players in the video advertising marketplace,
we have the best content and engagement in the world, we are the top
growth network for the Millennial audience, and we're the #1 weekend
network in the country. And, of course, everyone loves the movies, so
today we plant our flag and claim our rightful place as America's Movie
Network."
Marks also announced that E! host Maria
Menounos has signed an agreement to be the new face of America's
Movie Network as the host of NCM's FirstLook pre-show program,
which reaches over 700 million moviegoers annually across a network of
21,000 screens covering 97% of all TV households. "With Maria Menounos
we have one of America's premier hosts and entertainment personalities,
someone who has done everything from star in movies to interview
presidents," Marks said.
Menounos then took the stage, sharing that, "Movies helped me to learn
English growing up. They also were the healthiest escape and source of
inspiration and remain so to this day. To be part of America's greatest
modern art form in theaters daily with NCM's FirstLook is
literally a dream come true." Menounos, and her partner, producer Keven
Undergaro, co-founders of AfterbuzzTV.com,
the largest online broadcast network that produces "after-shows" for
favorite TV shows and plays to a weekly world audience of 23 million,
will also create content for NCM. She continued, "NCM is the premier
platform in this unique and exciting space. I'm thrilled to host and
produce content that will reach moviegoers all across America and hope
it will enhance the overall movie experience. We are very much looking
forward to working with Cliff and his amazing team." First up will be Movie
Minute segments, offering brands a new way to engage moviegoers
across all of the platforms where they view movie content — on-screen,
online and on mobile devices.
A Big Year At The Movies
Menounos then gave the audience an insider's look at what is coming up
in the 2015-16 movie season, one which many industry experts are
predicting could be the biggest in movie box office history. So far this
year, hits like Fifty Shades of Grey, Furious 7 and Avengers:
Age of Ultron have resulted in record crowds and sold-out inventory
for NCM. And with upcoming titles including Black
Mass, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, The
Peanuts Movie, Jurassic World, Spectre,
Star Wars: The Force Awakens and everything in between, she
expects this to be a fabulous year at the movies.
Cinema Targetability & Measurement
Moving from movies to moviegoers, NCM's Executive Vice President and
Chief Revenue Officer, Bennett Fogel, got down to business, introducing
a number of new ways to target NCM's highly desirable, young and engaged
audience. NCM's Cinema Audience Targeting Optimizer (CATO)
system, which has been in development for over a year and will be tested
this year with select clients and made available across NCM's entire
on-screen inventory in early 2016. The CATO system will enable brands to
create media schedules based on movie genres that more effectively
deliver a target audience for maximum impact and efficiency. In
addition, CATO will enable NCM to offer a number of new specialty
networks to reach specific multicultural and consumer groups, including
an NCM Hispanic network and an NCM High Income network.
But he was quick to point out that targeting the NCM moviegoer shouldn't
be confined to just the theater, which is why NCM has engaged Rocket
Fuel's Audience Accelerator to power Cinema Accelerator,
a new product that utilizes first-party data including movie ticket
purchase data, geo-local mobile audiences, cross-device delivery and
audience modeling to accurately reach NCM moviegoers as they extend
their movie-going experience. It gives NCM Digital the ability to
connect the dots from awareness to purchase with proprietary targeting
capabilities and optimization to reach in-theater audiences with online
and mobile activations. Marketers can now go beyond the big screen in a
whole new way to create full-funnel marketing programs that surround the
entertainment experience, increasing both recall and frequency.
Encompassing NCM's more than 700 million moviegoers a year, Cinema
Accelerator has the largest data set in the industry for entertainment
audiences and is backed by Nielsen and comScore VCE audience guarantees.
Bennett Fogel noted, "We set out a few years back to reposition NCM as
an easy alternative to capture high-quality impressions and include them
in the premium video planning process. We converted our audience
delivery to Nielsen ratings based on the TV universe, changed our
pricing model to compete with premium prime and live event programming
and offered standard upfront terms and options. In last year's upfront,
against the backdrop of rapidly accelerating audience fragmentation and
commercial avoidance, NCM's new approach resulted in the doubling of our
upfront commitments and the completion of our transition into a
mainstream upfront participant. In fact, we had a strong first quarter
and are tracking to have a record second quarter with our national
inventory nearly sold out!" He continued, "This year, to further enhance
and standardize our measurement and ROI metrics, all of our upfront
partners will not only receive demographic guarantees directly posted by
Nielsen, but will also receive engagement posts conducted by Nielsen
Brand Effect. Every post analysis will not only include target audience
delivery, but will now also include measurement of brand recall, message
recall and likeability to quantify the impact of an ad in NCM's FirstLook
versus TV, and the combination of the two which has proven to provide
maximum impact."
After giving NCM's upfront audience a never-before-seen sneak peak at
some of the hottest films that are expected to drive the industry box
office to record levels for the upcoming year, Cliff Marks concluded,
"No one knows moviegoers like NCM. And as America's Movie Network, we
know how to connect brands with what America will be talking about -
this Friday, next week, next month, next quarter and next year. As the
#1 weekend network in the country, NCM is delivering the best
entertainment content, national reach and unparalleled audience
engagement across our digital in-theater network. You can count on
America's Movie Network to always bring you new ideas to capture the
power of the movies."
About National CineMedia (NCM)
National CineMedia (NCM) is America's Movie Network. As the #1 weekend
network in the U.S., NCM helps brands get in front of the movies that
shape the national conversation. More than 700 million moviegoers a year
enjoy NCM's FirstLook pre-show in nearly 50 leading national and
regional theater circuit affiliates including AMC Entertainment Inc.
(NYSE:AMC), Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:CNK) and Regal Entertainment
Group (NYSE: RGC). NCM's cinema advertising network offers broad reach
and unparalleled audience engagement with approximately 20,100 screens
in approximately 1,600 theaters in 183 Designated Market Areas® (49 of
the top 50). NCM Digital goes beyond the big screen, extending
in-theater campaigns into online and mobile marketing programs to reach
entertainment audiences. National CineMedia, Inc. (NASDAQ:NCMI) owns a
45.1% interest in, and is the managing member of National CineMedia,
LLC. For more information, visit www.ncm.com.
(NCMI-A)
To download NCM's new logo and other images/photos from NCM's upfront
event, click here.
Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20150513005949/en/
National CineMedia (NCM)
Amy Jane Finnerty, 212-931-8117
amy.finnerty@ncm.com
or
Leslie
Obletz, 212-931-8119
leslie.obletz@ncm.com
Source: National CineMedia (NCM)
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