Smart Meetings

Meeting And A Movie

June 2006

Did you Know

When you can’t use the proverbial stick to motivate, then you’ve got to get yourself a carrot.

If you plan meetings around product launches, product or medical updates, or even sales training of store personnel, how do you get a group of people who don’t work for your company (so, no “stick”) to cut into their day to attend?

One way is to pull out the “carrot” and hold your meeting in a neighborhood movie theater. Then you follow that meeting with a pre-opening, sneak preview of one of Hollywood’s most highly anticipated hot releases, say the latest Harry Potter adventure.

And you invite the attendees’ families to come for the screening.

This is the brainchild of National CineMedia, a joint venture of some of the largest theatrical exhibitor chains in the country. There are more than 1,200  theaters available in the network and these theatres bear such comfortingly familiar names as AMC, Cinemark, Regal, United Artists and Edwards, and now Loews, just bought by AMC. Together they own somewhere between 40 to 50 percent of the country’s venues, which means they have the clout to negotiate with the studios for the pre-release privilege.

Through CineMeetings & Events, a subsidiary, meeting professionals can book one theater or a thousand. They can accommodate anywhere from 50 to 750 in each. They can arrange for the presentation to be done live from one theater’s podium to the audience sitting in front of them, or it can be pre-recorded for exhibition. Either way, your content can be broadcast simultaneously across all 1,200 theaters.

CineMedia’s own Digital Content Network, a digital and satellite system, can feed the presentation, or your live hosted panel, into each theater’s A/V system.

This way, Bill Gates can stand in front of a camera in Redmond and be broadcast to hundreds of theaters at one time. And he can look good up there, blown up on the shimmering 40-foot screen, sounding startlingly clear over the theater’s surround-sound system. With such a perfect delivery support, Gates comes off as a matinee idol of sorts for the 21st century (who knew?).

No wonder Microsoft delivered hundreds of presentations through CineMeetings this year.

Incidentally, you don’t have to be George Lucas to prepare the presentation. “We can work with anything from the standard PowerPoint on out,” says Mike Schonberger, vice president of sales and marketing for National CineMedia in Denver. “But we bring content consultants and engineering to the table that will help you format your content in such a way so that it will fit in the cinema and in a very cinematic format so that it is appealing to the eye.” That can include high-definition formats with MTV high-energy soundtracks.

CineMeetings’ centralized event management team does other things to make you look good, much of which is explained on their well-designed web site, cinemeetings.com. Even if you need all 1,200
theaters, you make one phone call and they take it from there. You can select the menu for breakfast or lunch in one place and the juice will cost the same whether it’s served in Monterey or Missoula. The company has standardized contracts with national catering companies, explains Schonberger, referring to the likes of Boston Market and others. “And by the way,  it’s a really good price,” he says. Further, they do the communication with each theater’s management, its A/V staff and catering.

CineMeetings can also run your attendee list’s zip codes to coordinate who goes where and the billing is centralized as well.

Bayer used it to introduce new flea and tick collars; Papa Johns introduced their new CEO  as well as a buffalo wings promotion to their franchisees. Quest and Intel used it to roll out new high-tech products. Microsoft targets developers in these sessions, people who take their products and develop code around them. Realtors use them for customer appreciation.

It’s grown from 7,000 meetings in 2005 to 14,000 meetings this year. “The feedback that they’re getting on their surveys is very positive,” says Schonberger. “There are so many events that are not family-centric, that pull people away from their families. This is an app-lication that appeals to the family.” And that’s a pretty tasty carrot.