The British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE) and The Entertainment Retailers Association today announced the first set of speakers confirmed for the forthcoming Category Showcase & Innovation Forum, set to take place at Picturehouse Central from 8:30am on July 4th, 2018.
This year, the Innovation Forum section of the half-day event will be focusing on innovation in the category whilst also delivering high-level insight around key trends influencing it. At the same time, the forum will be shining a light on key industry innovations celebrated at this year’s BASE Awards whilst also looking beyond the category and even UK borders to find analogous innovation and opportunity for guests attending from across the industry.
Kantar Consulting will provide the insight on the day, with Derya Yildiz, Principal Analyst on the Kantar Consulting Market Insights team in London, examining the wealth of opportunities for future growth in what they acknowledge is a ‘more granular, more difficult and more opportunistic’ landscape.
Talking about appearing at this year’s Innovation Forum, Yildiz said: “Challenges in the entertainment industry are very similar to the rest of the retail industry, and the good news is the solution is the same: innovation. Today’s consumer interacts with all types of content and products. They may even add items to their ‘wish lists’, but the final step, the actual transaction, is not always completed. Finding the right conversion tools and the right loyalty touch points are the constant battle for retail as a whole.
“The whole retail industry, whether it is entertainment or grocery, is now hungry for capability-driven partnerships. They approach disruptors who may help them leapfrog. It is, after all, a battle for share of wallet of the digitally-dependent consumer, both on and offline. Success comes to those who embrace the disruption, and who look for inspiration and innovation outside their comfort zones.”
This year’s forum will also be hosting an Innovation Panel comprising some of the diverse innovation award entrants from the 2018 BASE Awards. The panellists will each be given the chance to present an overview of their entries, with four BASE Award winners so far confirmed to take part.
Carla Bell from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group and Carolyn Erwood from The Walt Disney Company will deliver précis of their respective Digital Learning Lounge and Download & Keep campaigns, which jointly won the Outstanding Innovation of the Year award, while HMV’s John Delany will present the specialist’s winning entry for the Physical Retailer Innovation of the Year award, with Ryan Virgo from Sky Store presenting his own winning entry into the Digital Retailer Innovation of the Year category.
The panel will be chaired by Kim Bayley, Chief Executive at the Entertainment Retailers Association, who said: ““Innovation has been at the very heart of driving the growth in entertainment retail and I’m delighted to help showcase the winners of the Innovation categories at the BASE Awards. With the winning entries highlighting the diversity of innovation across physical and digital retail as well as from distribution, this session should contain something for everyone”
BBC Television’s Radzi Chinyanganya has been confirmed as the host for the Category Showcase section of the event, with tickets available here . The event is free to BASE and ERA members who will receive priority status when reserving.
