At Pearl & Dean we monetise cinema audiences for leading independent cinemas, multiplexes and, innovative formats like Luna Cinema and institutions such as the BFI. Most media owner revenues were negatively impacted during the pandemic. But with cinemas closed for over a year, it was tough. Even when cinemas re-opened there was a combination of restrictions and fear.

By making personal sacrifices as a team, we avoided redundancies. We rotated furlough and worked reduced hours at reduced salaries, so that everyone had a chance to work. We increased our training programme and introduced additional wellbeing measures. When finally re-united, our team was intact, engaged, supported, and highly motivated to succeed. But budgets had understandably been channeled into other media. To get them back we had a three-pronged strategy; Come back with a bang, creating the £1.7m “Remember Cinema” campaign; Stay front of mind with continuous engagement and successful thought leadership webinars; Be even more creative, by acquiring brand experience agency DIVE, taking our partnership output to the next level. But the proof of a sales teams’ success must come primarily in the results. Team churn has been very low, and our employee engagement’s at an all-time high. Our revenue comparisons vs 2019 were positive on all key measures. We were well ahead of relative admissions performance; we quadrupled our solus partnerships; and we significantly overachieved vs our share of all cinema admissions. Having achieved all of this we truly believe we can take Cinema “To infinity and beyond!”