Cinema sales houses scrap plans to create trade body

Cinema’s two sales houses, Carlton Screen Advertising (CSA) and Pearl & Dean, have scrapped plans to set up a trade body to market the medium to advertisers and their agencies (MW November 1997).

The body was to be modelled on the Radio Advertising Bureau, which has been widely praised for helping radio to grow from two per cent to four per cent of total UK advertising since it was set up in 1992.

Pearl & Dean managing director Peter Howard-Williams says: “There are only two buying points in this market, in the end we thought it would not be cost effective to set up a separate body to market the medium. Also, relations between ourselves and Carlton Screen Advertising are more civilised than they were a few years ago.”

The two houses instead plan to build the medium by setting up a joint marketing committee led by the heads of marketing at each house. The committee is expected to have its first meeting within three months.

Charlotte Stockting was appointed marketing director of CSA in February (MW February 5). Pearl & Dean does not have a head of marketing, but it expects to make an appointment in two months.

Sales of UK cinema advertising stand at 73m a year, 0.8 per cent of total UK ad spend. CSA has 70 per cent of this market, with Pearl & Dean taking the rest.