"We fight for every cinema contract"

The German cinema marketer is bringing a new dynamic to the market - as previously in German-speaking Switzerland. Werbewoche spoke about this with Nils Schilling, Managing Director of Werbe-Weischer.

At the beginning of the year, you bet on a "really good 2014" in a column in Werbewoche. How are things now - are you satisfied?
Nils Schilling: We are actually very satisfied because we achieved important milestones in 2014. We were able to conclude key contracts that will take effect from 2015 and will give us market leadership in German-speaking Switzerland with a market share of 52%. And in French-speaking Switzerland, we were able to seal our planned market entry with a higher market share than planned: My minimum market share was 15%, now we have 21%.

Your competitor Publicitas Cinecom takes a different view: it only grants the 35 screens that you have under contract in French-speaking Switzerland from 2015 a market share of 8%. The reason: the new Arena multiplex La Praille in Geneva with nine screens and 1,600 seats is under contract with Cinecom and was not yet included in Mach Cinema 2014.
Our benchmark is always the official industry statistics, the admission figures from the Pro Cinema association. The Arena La Praille is not yet included in these statistics, but it remains to be seen what effect it will have on the market. In any case, it is possible that other cinemas in Geneva, which are also leased by Cinecom, will primarily lose visitors to La Praille, which would not affect the market share of our cinemas.

Nevertheless, their market share could be lower.
We cannot understand why we have fallen from 21% to 8% because of La Praille. According to my calculations - and assuming that La Praille only generates new moviegoers - at worst we will start with 18 or 19 percent instead of 21 percent. Ultimately, however, we will have to wait for the actual data.

A similar discourse is taking place in German-speaking Switzerland: Cinecom is contesting its market leadership from 2015 because it has a contract for the Arena-Megaplex Sihlcity, which will have 18 screens and 2,600 seats from Easter 2015 (previously 10 screens). Cinecom says that WerbeWeischer will therefore only reach 48%.
The same answer applies here: these are just estimates. The fact that Cinecom is trying to factor in new screens is understandable, but not serious. The Arena Sihlcity undoubtedly has a large number of visitors, but here too it is possible that in future they will simply be spread across more screens within the building.

You have been campaigning in the Swiss market for three years: what is your assessment?
A very positive one, because we met with a great deal of interest. Our marketing model, which we call "Cinema Reloaded", is very well received in the market: with the targeting options according to target groups and billing customers and cinemas according to actual attendance figures, we are meeting the market's demands. We have already acquired many new customers in the national advertising business.

Apparently, Kitag, the largest cinema chain in German-speaking Switzerland, brought you to Switzerland because Kitag was no longer satisfied with Publicitas Cinecom.
You could put it like that. But there was also a certain frustration among other cinema operators because important changes that were supposed to lead the medium into the future failed to materialize. When we established our marketing model on the German market in 2010 and achieved high growth rates, Swiss cinema operators also became aware of it. In the meantime, we have grown far beyond Kitag and have 193 out of a good 500 cinemas in Switzerland under contract.

I hear that you are quite aggressive on prices in Switzerland.
It's clear: in the current competitive situation between us and Cinecom, the cinemas are benefiting. But also consider the side of the advertising customers! Before we entered the market, Cinecom offered them far too high freespace volumes - but the premium medium of cinema does not deserve to be hawked in this way. In short: on the cinema side, we fight for every contract, whereas on the customer side, we want to enforce price stability.

Publicitas Cinecom was sold to the Munich-based investor Aurelius in the spring. The company is now as German as WerbeWeischer. Has this made it easier for you to gain access to (French-speaking Swiss) cinema owners?
This situation is actually more of an advantage than a disadvantage for us. Cinecom no longer has a home advantage and is therefore no longer in pole position. A second aspect is that nobody at Publicitas currently knows exactly what the future strategy will be. In addition, cinema is just one of many media that it looks after. The owner-managed company WerbeWeischer, on the other hand, has been dealing exclusively with cinema for 60 years. So anyone who has the choice is happy to switch to us.

Why haven't you managed to do business with Pathé or the Arena cinemas so far?
Contracts always have a term, which we respect. But you can be sure that we are in very intensive talks with all cinema operators. We are therefore certain that we will continue to improve our market share in the coming months and years.

Let's be honest: is there anything your competitor does better than you?
The name Cinecom is a well-established brand in the Swiss cinema market. However, it is sad to hear that this brand will be scrapped at the end of 2014 because Publicitas is focusing on a one-brand strategy (1). A second point: Cinecom has a good local sales organization that has operated under the same management for years and has good contacts.

They are also active in the local market.
Yes, the local advertising business accounts for around 40 percent of advertising spend in cinemas - so it's not an insignificant slice of the pie. That's why we have four local sales managers in German-speaking Switzerland, and we now have a fifth person for French-speaking Switzerland and are expanding in line with growth.

What new things are you bringing to French-speaking Switzerland?
First a lot of passion for cinema. Then our cinema marketing model - the most advanced in the world. We don't just say that, but because we have an international overview: You won't find such fine scalability according to target groups, billing according to visitor data and the high quality standards for advertising broadcasts anywhere else. These alone are positive innovations for the cinema market in French-speaking Switzerland. Added to this are ideas such as new foyer activities, the link with online advertising or interaction models via smartphone. We are also pushing a branded content approach using storytelling: brands offer material for great stories, and cinema provides a great stage for this. We have our own department for this type of communication and can provide the Swiss market with many exciting concepts.

In 2013, you started with a thousand-contact price (CPM) of 11.50 francs. What CPM do you have in 2015?
This CPM refers to room-related placements, per advertising second and proven 1000 contacts. We will keep this price stable in 2015. However, there are other products where we are making improvements due to demand. We are therefore planning a moderate price increase of 2% across the board for the coming year. There are no differences between German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland.

Competition stimulates business, they say. But after you entered the market in 2013, net advertising sales in the cinema medium fell by CHF 4 million to CHF 26 million. What did you do wrong?
This alleged decline is based on an incorrect sales report for 2012. We recently noticed this and informed Wemf and Cinecom. A correction will be made, which will probably result in a more stable development (2). Something second: In the years before we entered the market, the cinema share in the media mix fell from over 1 percent to 0.6 percent. This cannot be turned around overnight, especially as the innovations we introduced to the market have not yet fully established themselves: As before, only WerbeWeischer charges according to actual visitor numbers, offers targeting options and combinations and implements an international quality standard for all advertising spots.

Markus Knöpfli

1) Christoph Marty, CEO of Publicitas, confirmed on request: "Since mid-2014, we have been gradually merging the Publimag, Publimedia and Cinecom image brands under the Publicitas umbrella. "

2) On request, Rolf Blum from Wemf confirmed that a correction will be made regarding cinemas when the 2014 net value statistics are published (in spring 2015).

in a nutshell

Nils Schilling (44) comes from Bonn. After training in banking, he switched to the entertainment industry. He has been working in cinema advertising marketing since 1996, first at the former company Cinecom Deutschland, from 2000 at WerbeWeischer as a member of the management board and since 2009 as its managing director. Schilling was instrumental in establishing "Cinema Reloaded" on the German market. Advertising wiper is an owner-managed company based in Hamburg. It has been involved in cinema for 60 years and has been the market leader in the German cinema market ever since - with a market share of 90 percent in terms of cinema advertising spendings. With over 2000 cinemas, WerbeWeischer looks after the majority of cinema companies. In Germany, cinema has a reach of approx. 5 percent and a market share in the media mix of approx. 1 percent (gross).