That’s a wrap. Whilst the temperature indicates there is still a little bit left in the summer, the big city screens provided by C-Screens have been taken down for 2022.

With the majority of the summer of premium sport along with free to air films being been played out, it’s proven to be a great summer experience, with even more people venturing out to enjoy the combination of sunshine and live entertaining content.

• 13 sites live across the summer
• 29m cumulative footfall across all sites
• 72% average price discount for 16-34 Adults (versus ITV Ratecard)

From a media sales point of view, the C-Screens large format screens are seen by many clients as a great way of reaching a young upmarket city audience. As TV impacts historically fall away across the summer, the months of June to August delivered linear TV 16-34 Adult price inflation of circa 40%, whilst C-Screens operated on a zero-inflation policy.

An increased number of TV spot campaigns meant C-Screens saw their biggest ever summer. We also created two fantastic engaging partnerships with Starling Bank and Paypal, which included branding of the large screens, on screen sponsorship idents, experiential activation, and spot activity.

What was interesting about this summer was that brands (contrary to the previous three years) were preferring to focus on spot campaigns rather than a sponsorship of a site. My belief is that with brands and agencies being more time poor than ever before, and working to shorter deadlines, it has impeded the creative spark required to put a sponsorship agreement together, even though these tend to offer far greater media value for a brand across the summer months.

SITES

From a logistical point of view, it has been C-Screens most challenging summer. We had 13 different sites up in total and welcomed some new landowners and sites into the fold.  We welcomed Kings Cross Network Rail and Kings Cross canal into the C-Screens family and embraced a change of screen location in Manchester.  We continued to collaborate with our Newcastle and Birmingham partners on screens in the city and extended into Kent with a screen at Whitefriars.

CONTENT

From a sporting content point of view, we showcased England Women’s football Euro’s triumph, saw Novak Djokovic and Elena Rybakina lift the Wimbledon’s singles titles, watched the England Men’s cricket team go unbeaten (until South Africa destroyed them last week), and 176 medals be won by English athletes at the Commonwealth Games.

CHALLENGES

Not everything went smoothly though. Rail strike issues meant our CEO, Robert, had to arrive at King Cross station at 5am to lower the vehicle bollards to ensure our screen was able to access the site (as rail workers were still on strike), and our head of site management, Toby, had numerous overnight duties whilst screens were being erected and deconstructed in off-peak times. He is now sleeping off the effects of this.

LOOKING AHEAD

Now Summer Live 2022 is officially “done”, it’s onto the next challenge. C-Screens will be operating a number of strategic screens across the Qatar World Cup, showing all the games live. For brands wanting to get involved (at a fraction of the linear TV CPT’s) then please get in touch.  After that planning moves towards the summer of 2023, with C-Screens looking to further expand their screen footprint across the country.

By Steve Chambers | Commercial Director