Historic Commercials Walk the Red Carpet

Last week, SF Media held its yearly industry event, The Red Carpet, for some 400 advertisers, ad agencies, marketing managers and more, who came to the Skandia cinema in Stockholm for networking and inspiration. 

"We started The Red Carpet two years ago to inspire our customers and decisionmakers to give them ideas for creative advertising for movie theaters," says Carolin Högmyr, head of marketing at SF Media. "A previous theme for the event was 3D, with brain researcher Martin Ingvar explaining how the brain takes in and processes ads. The event is very appreciated, and the cinema industry's long history is a rich source to go to when it comes to finding new themes for coming events."

This year's event included selected choice ads from SF's 85-year-old movie audience ad archive. A source that will be used again during the spring, Högmyr says.

"We're going to invite our customers to ad evenings in Ingmar Bergman's small preview theater where we can show everything or at least part of the archive that we have in our headquarters in Råsunda," says Högmyr. "The idea is that it will be inspirational and generate ideas for an advertiser and ad bureau partners, for example, or for a marketing department or ad agency that wants to provide more knowledge about advertising history or look at how an industry has communicated throughout the years. Looking at these old ads in a movie theater is a unique experience and gives us the opportunity at the same time to create even better customer relations."

Two satisfied customers – TCO and Microsoft/Xbox – presented their cases for the audience at the event. Both went outside the cinema advertising box and tested events as a complement to banners and film commercials, which gave a powerful extra kick for both.

"Today people watch movies or episodes of TV shows when they have time, media is consumed individually," says Niklas Lindén of Microsoft. "The movie theater is one of the few instances where people actually consume media in a group. And to watch something together as you do at the cinema strengthens the effect and experience."