On September 15-17, 2014, Entgroup hosted the 5th Annual Culture and Entertainment Industry Summit in JW Marriott Hotel in Beijing CBD. Packed with thought-provoking keynotes and dynamite panel discussions, this signature event gathered leaders in film, TV, cinema, finance, new media and advertising, to discuss trends in China's booming cultural and entertainment sectors. The Summit launched with a main session followed by several break-out sessions, covering different areas of film, new media, entertainment marketing and film O2O.
With the theme of "Reshape Fusion", the Film O2O (cinemas and e-commerce) Session featured senior executives from the frontier of theatres and ticketing e-commerce, providing them an opportunity to share views on online-to-offline (O2O) trends and reformation of theatre operations.
Following are the valuable takeaways from the Film O2O (cinemas and e-commerce) Session.
Consumers of cinema O2O market
Fu Yalong, research manager of Entgroup, said the O2O users are also the netizens, overlapping most of the cinemagoers nowadays. It was predicted that there will be over 800 million admissions in Chinese cinemas in 2014, seeing a 31% increase of last year. The O2O users' habits, favors and expectations to the entertainment service would guide the service providers and mobile products to make a progress.
"According to Entgroup's research on cinemagoers satisfactory, the rating to consumer experience was collectively 65% to 70% (out of 100%). On the other issue, the cinemas tend to be operated in a homogenized way and lack of uniqueness and diversity." Fu noted, “The O2O platform should involve in the new co-operation with cinemas, rather than simply building the ticketing platforms and communities."
O2O and online marketing in a vertically integrated film industry
The founder and CEO of Epiao, Gao Hua, said the new media platforms, such as 360, Xiaomi and Epiao, have strengths in marketing and promoting films. A successful case of Epiao, for example, by selling a package of farm products, film tickets of "One Step Away" and peripheral products to promote the film on JD.com, the second biggest e-commerce in China .
"Film finance through online crowd-funding will be a trend and benefit from O2O market. Primarily, E-ticket is the admission for watching films. And secondly, it certifies the privileges of film fans or if we issue it before film releasing, it can be the certification of investment and bonus for a film production". Gao noted the crowd-funding on O2O platform will collect the data of audiences' needs and push forward setting the marketing strategy, which will integrate more resources from different industries and more transparently, launch the promotion.
Trends in theater operations reformation
Li Baoyu, the former director of CGV cinema development and former business development and executive general manager of Orange Sky Golden Harvest suggested an expansion of cinemas to the third-tier or fourth-tier cities. "The available space for cineplex in the central of tier or second-tier cities is becoming less and less. The trend of developing cinemas must be in the third or fourth tier cities."
With the growth of the 3D, IMAX, 4D and D-Box halls in Chinese cinema chains, Mr. Li proposed trends of upgrading the cinema facilities for the diversified demands of the young and amusement–tended generation. "Many cinema chains, such as CGV and UME, have 4D halls. They are going to appear in more and more cities". Also, Li mentioned that the operation model of functional halls for couples and children would be gradually independent from the traditional system.