Big Wins for Cinemark at The Most Awards 2017

Cinemark secured third place as Media Owner of the Year at the 9th annual MOST Awards. That’s not all, Cinemark also bagged first place in the Cinema category, making it three wins for three consecutive years. The MOST Awards is a celebration of excellence in the media sector. The winners were announced at a prestigious event on Thursday, 14 September 2017 at The Wanderers Club in Illovo, Johannesburg.

The MOST Awards recognises the ‘best of the best’ in the media industry and is based on independent, robust research conducted by Freshly Ground Insights (FGI). The survey provides an opportunity for media agencies and media owner sales teams to anonymously vote on the quality of the service delivery, knowledge and innovation of their counterparts based on various criteria.

“It is a wonderful achievement for our team to have won this accolade for the third year running. Having been voted the Best Media Owner in the Cinema and Television category in 2015 and the 2016 Best Media Owner in the Cinema category, Cinemark has triumphed again in winning the MOST Awards Cinema category again in 2017. This is testimony to the hard work and dedication of the sales team in a highly-competitive environment. We would like to thank the industry for paying tribute to our winning sales team with this award,” says Eric Blignaut, National Sales Manager of Ster-Kinekor Theatres, who accepted the MOST Award together with the Cinemark team.

The Cinemark team displayed determination and innovation in its approach in positioning clients’ brands on the big screen. Their success reinforces cinema as a captive media platform that delivers superlative audience attention and influences consumer behaviour towards advertised brands. The medium offers fewer distractions – in fact, research shows that adverts are regarded as part of the overall cinema entertainment package.

Through thorough understanding of their own platform, the Cinemark team translates this into gaining in-depth knowledge about client brands and focusing their efforts on offering solutions that achieve a client’s business objective or sales target. “Our unique approach of offering our clients different ways of buying cinema, results from our understanding of their specific requirements. We pride ourselves in creating highly targeted campaigns in cinema that guarantee audience numbers to provide business solutions,” added Blignaut. “Let us create a bespoke cinema campaign for one of your brands or products to achieve a specific business goal, and we think you will be delighted with the results.”

About Cinemark

Cinemark is proud of its long association with the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and acts as the local representative for the event.  In addition to this, each year Cinemark conducts the South African Young Lions competition, searching for young creatives and talented individuals who are given the opportunity to attend the prestigious annual festival.

Cannes Lions has local representatives across the globe for the festival brand, and in South Africa Cinemark is proud to play this role, encouraging involvement with the Young Lions competition and inspiring innovation in advertising.

Cinemark is the advertising sales company that represents Ster-Kinekor and selected independent cinemas. Providing advertisers with an attentive and captive audience in a relaxed and receptive mood, cinema is a medium with high visual impact and great sound that engages the audience.

Cinemark came into being in 1971 through the merger of Alexander Films, Filmlets SA and Ster Adfilms.

It was purchased by Primedia, a reputed South African media concern. In addition to the creative and cost-effective on screen and alternative packages on offer, Cinemark represents the lions-share of cinema complexes – 63% of all cinema screens in South Africa. Cinemark represented cinemas generate between 15 and 17 million attendances per annum.

When advertising through Cinemark your brand is exposed to a discerning, high-end audience in one of the most technologically advanced environments in the world. Ster-Kinekor’s new, fully digitized cinema network delivers crisp picture quality through Christie projectors and for those with an appetite for 3D, Ster-Kinekor has 112 state-of-the-art 3D cinemas, securing its 3D footprint in the country.

Ster-Kinekor’s cinema offering includes the business class Cine Prestige at select cinema complexes, Dolby® AtmosTM sound and 48 frames per second (or High Frame Rate – HFR) in 3D with a full 4k resolution digital cinema screen and IMAX® at Ster-Kinekor Gateway.

Cinemark is a member of the Screen Advertising World Association (SAWA), an international trade body which aims to develop international standards and practices for Screen Advertising companies. SAWA members duly comply to such regulation.

Cinemark is the official Cannes Lions Representative for South Africa.

About Ster-Kinekor Theatres

 Ster-Kinekor Theatres is a wholly-owned business within the Primedia Group and is the largest movie exhibitor on the African continent. To most South Africans, the word ‘movies’ is synonymous with the name ‘Ster-Kinekor’. The company operates 57 commercial cinema complexes in South Africa, with six international sites based in Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The cinema chain’s sites house more than 480 large-scale screens, over 87 264 seats and the largest 3D footprint featuring more than 140 state-of-the-art 3D screens across the country.

As the industry leader, Ster-Kinekor has pioneered cinema concepts such as Cinema Nouveau, one of the world’s largest dedicated art-house multiplex circuits, and the luxurious Cine Prestige theatres, the first ‘business class’ cinema experience in South Africa. It boasts the only cinema on the continent that is fitted with the advanced Dolby Atmos sound system (at Gateway in Durban); and has headed the return of The IMAX® Experience, with the opening of seven IMAX® Theatres across the country.

As one of South Africa’s most loved brands, it is Ster-Kinekor’s ongoing mission to become synonymous with the unrivalled magic of the cinema experience, by providing ‘Great Moments at Their Greatest’. During 2013, the company embarked on a massive roll-out project to convert and equip every cinema with the very latest in digital projection and sound technology. The result of this upgrade is that every cinema now boasts state-of-the-art cinema technology that encompasses 2K and 4K digital projection and 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound systems.

The award-winning SK App, which is downloadable on all smart phone operating systems, is interactive, user-friendly and feature-rich, and recently recorded over 1.9-million downloads. The SK Club loyalty programme rewards members with redeemable points when they swipe their card when buying movie tickets or catering. Combined with industry leading loyalty programmes from Edcon and Discovery Vitality, these give Ster-Kinekor a strong consumer value proposition and competitive advantage.

As the market leader, Ster-Kinekor aims to spearhead the advancement of cinema across both South Africa and the rest of Africa, to ensure that consumers continue to experience movies as they were made to be seen – on the big screen.