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Tesco’s Blinkbox to unveil ‘fresh from cinema’ brand campaign as it looks to reinforce position in competitive VOD market

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By Jessica Davies, News Editor

October 15, 2014 | 3 min read

Tesco-owned Blinkbox is gearing up to launch a major branding campaign to promote its place as provider of “fresh from cinema” movie releases, despite recent speculation that the retailer is looking to sell the service.

The campaign, which will break next Wednesday (22 October), will include 30-second TV spots featuring a voiceover stating that 'the following movie has been rated fresh from cinema,' before showcasing the latest titles on the service.

Ads, developed by creative agency Antidote, will run across buses, video-on-demand and digital advertising, with all media planning and buying overseen by Arena Media.

It will break across London tube stations next week, featuring a spoof ‘F for Fresh from Cinema’ creative.

The news comes as the movie and streaming service this week launched its first ever digital movie and TV locker service Ultraviolet, letting customers build digital collections from select physical DVDs or blu-rays they have bought in Tesco stores.

To do so it has partnered with four Hollywood studios – Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, NBC Universal and 20th Century Fox – to provide the Ultraviolet functionality, which will open up the ability for Blinkbox customers to instantly stream or download movies such as The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Bad Neighbours, Rio 2 and 300 Rise of An Empire, for viewing on multiple devices, once they have bought the physical discs which feature the redemption code.

Up to five family members can then access the same digital locker.

The company wouldn’t comment on the recent reports that Tesco is looking for a buyer for the service, following a tumultuous few months which has seen multiple senior executives depart from the retailer following a major profits over-estimation.

However, speaking to The Drum Blinkbox Movies & TV managing director Adrian Letts said the service is “go go go” and that it has more product development in the pipeline.

“We are excited with this new UltraViolet service, which offers customers even more ways to enjoy the latest movies and TV shows on their terms, whether they’ve been purchased in-store or online.”

Tesco category director for entertainment, Ian Ditcham added:“This is about helping movie and TV fans on their journey from physical to digital entertainment while also offering flexibility in how movies and TV shows can be easily shared with family.”

The retailer has been a member of the digital locker initative UltraViolet - whose remit has been to facilitate interoperability across offline and digital devices - for several years.

Meanwhile, Netflix has started moving more aggressivley into the feature-length cinema window, with chief content officer Ted Sarandos announcing plans to "reviatlise" movie distribution at Mipcom this week.

Although they are competitors in the video-on-demand market, Blinkbox operates in a different rights-buying window to streaming giant Netflix and Amazon Prime, given it is a pay-per-view service rather than subscription.

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