Nicolás Smirnoff/director
Main Report
LA Virtual Screenings is the online version of LA Screenings, the traditional content event where the Hollywood Studios receive head buyers from all the world in Los Angeles, USA, to introduce their new seasons of films and series. For Latin America in particular, there has been an independent market held at the Century Plaza hotel, with about 50-60 distributors exhibiting their products.
In the Pandemic scenario, Prensario and NATPE have made an alliance to provide LA Virtual Screenings, the third edition of Prensario’s Virtual Screenings online events that have generated very good responses at the first two experiences. When most of the online events have problems… what is the secret of the VS events? Global traffic, for all regions; a very simple and friendly system, as Netflix’s interface; a story told day by day, with the evolution of the rankings of visited booths and contents, etc. And the detailed feedback reports that the platform provides, allowing sellers and buyers to set up screening trends by type, genre and origin of contents, and by type of buyers, from free TV, Pay TV, OTTs and regions.
But above all, Virtual Screenings is based on Inbound Marketing, when many of the online events of the content industry are based on Outbound Marketing. What do these mean? The traditional marketing is outbound: to generate promotional, advertisement activity saying good things about the proposal and reach the customer trying to convince him to buy. Nowadays, outbound are the spots, the offering we watch on TV, on the streets, etc.
What is Inbound? The opposite, natively digital. To generate neutral, formative, didactive, content and upload it on Internet, for people to come on their own and interact: to know more about the matter, to change opinions, to clarify doubts… and the commercial activities appear as a response to the users, when they have shown specific interest on something, so the interaction must be also specific.
In many of the content online events, the problem is that the organizers want to include all the tips of the physical events, so the platforms get complicated and many aspects don’t work, because they don’t naturally perform in digital. Virtual Screenings makes focus on what works in digital, and generates interactions, synergies, around that actions.
The users (the buyers) are not obliged to anything: they are not committed to meetings, panels, etc, they just enter the market, make clicks and can watch a lot of content in a very easy and friendly way. The interaction with the sellers appears when they watch products, click the contact button or generate screenings in a way that let the seller to enrich their experience.
At LA Virtual Screenings this year there are around 60 exhibitors from the world to worldwide buyers, everything in English language. There are more than 250 hours of content, that the buyers can try without any disturbance. If we use the stats set up at last VS Autumn, we see that 80% of the 1500 buyers that attended VS in last September, have visited 50% or more of the booths, and stayed at least three days of the ten formal days of the market.
So? If you have global traffic —the VS events had 4000 people from 125 countries— and for the buyers is fast and friendly to watch a lot of content, and then you have very rich stats to follow, a lot of screenings are made, a lot of movement is onde and the market (the business) works. That’s why the VS organization has decided not to set up a meetings platform inside the events. Everything must be free and friendly, and make the interaction grow alone. A typical outbound message is ‘We are the best, buy my product’. A typical message of Inbound Marketing is ‘The 5 tips to have a successful content market’, and then when the industry members read the article, the opportunities take please. The new digital era obliges above all, to think digital.
