Kinomax is one of Russia’s largest national theater chains, incorporating more than two-dozen movie theaters. It features a wide presence in both the capital and Russia’s major regional centers. Kinomax is the country’s undisputed leader by number of regional theater outlets. The theater chain’s development is directly linked to its ability to reach long-term real estate and lease arrangements. The company first turned to our agency to help it accomplish a relatively narrow goal – to publicize the company as a reliable business partner in the Russian regions’ business and administrative circles (primarily among those involved in leasing and real estate).

In studying the level of the company’s media presence and the nature of the movie theater and screening business as a whole, the agency discovered that, first of all, the company’s presence in the communications sphere failed to correspond to its actual scale of business. In terms of the allotted coverage, the company substantially lagged behind its main competitors, even though their financial and market indicators were quite similar. Second of all, it turned out that the business aspect of the movie theater and screening industry receives almost no media coverage. Business coverage related to the "subject of movies" is primarily focused on movie rentals (which in modern times means the distribution of produced movies and their rights) rather than movie screenings – in other words, it focuses on movies as a specific type of consumer market product.

Thus, the agency not only had to overcome the problem of the company’s limited mention in the media, but also needed to create a media platform for delivering the company’s key industry-related communications, which were meant to help boost the company’s positive reputation as a reliable business partner.

The solution concept proposed by the agency was based on the idea of somehow stimulating media interest – and here, we are primarily referring to the business rather than the regional media – in the latest developments and trends affecting the movie theater and screening industry. At the same time, industry-related information – which was to be delivered as talking points – needed to be illustrated with the case example of the company-client and not its competitors. In addition, the company’s management had to assume the role of acting as leading experts on the business aspect of the industry’s development.

Relying on both the clearly appreciable increase in the public’s interest in the movies and the recent rise in movie theater attendance figures, the agency turned to leading business media with prepared expert material that characterized the industry as one undergoing a period of transition – moving away from a problematic "sphere of cultural leisure activity", to one having a modern business infrastructure. In particular, the agency examined issues relating to the increased focus on the movie theater business, its investment appeal and reliance on the open capital market, the industry’s development prospects and reliance on new technology such as digitalization, property rights, lease relations and construction matters, and a number of other business aspects.

For its program to raising public interest in the field, the agency created a pool of reporters who were devoted to allotting constant coverage to the industry, treating it as one of the dynamically-changing sectors of the consumer market. The agency created a company loyalty program for members of this pool, inviting them to premier showings, providing them with family discount cards, and other benefits.

The agency employed both the "information flow" technique – which relied on the punctual distribution of company press releases, with the agency operating as the company’s press office which handles media questions and distributes general industry news (!) – and also prepares targeted material for the business media with, first and foremost, conducting interviews in which company managers spoke as experts on the specific subject. The agency also made arrangements for special media events: press conferences, which were conducted both in Moscow and the regions, press lunches involving top management and leading business media reporters, and special press tours. One such event involved the presentation of a digital complex in the capital’s Kinomir movie theater, with reporters getting a chance to appreciate the multimedia capabilities of modern movie screenings. Thanks to collaboration with the Ren-TV television company, most of the screens that day broadcast the 2007 season’s opening Formula 1 race.

The agency also employed a number of special planning instruments (a monthly update of the industry calendar that featured upcoming events concerning the construction and operation of shopping and entertainment malls, as well as general movie business events: specialized exhibitions, conferences, roundtables and so on) and analysis techniques (a weekly media monitoring and compilations of electronic clippings, a monthly analytical report that reviewed both how the market was being covered and the company and its main competitors’ standing on the "information field"). The agency further assumed the management of company managers’ public appearances, i.e. preparing their speeches, organizing industry-related meetings, and so on.

The company’s relations with the media, previously unpredictable, have been organized into an effective system. Compared with the period from 2004-2005, in 2006-2007 the scope of the company’s presence in the media increased by almost 4 times (by number of releases in the nationwide and regional press -Integrum.ru) to the level of its competitors.

In the business press, in the period when the agency worked most intensely (from March, 2006 through March 2007) the company achieved substantial superiority over its competitors. What is more, compared with the analogous past period, the number of releases in connection with the cinema showings theme in the business press increased during that time by more than 6.5 times. Regular thematic sections appeared in a number of publications (RBK, Vedomosti and others).

The company managed to form an image of itself as a modern business with its own vision of market trends, an effective strategy and growth prospects. Using its accumulated reputation capital, in late 2006, the company announced its intention to file for an IPO.

In the "narrow" target segment—rental relations and real estate—the company was also acknowledged as the industry leader. In 2006 the company received the Hyperestate Award, a professional prize in the sphere of real estate for the development of its regional cinema chain. Where in 2006 the company managed to open 3 cinemas, expanding its chain to 19 (68 theaters with about 13,500 seats total), in 2007-2008 the company is building and opening 9 cinema complexes, adding more than 17,000 seats. This number might increase further as ten more projects are being negotiated.