Twitter and Vine are gearing up to move beyond smartphones and desktops and into movie theaters. That’s right, folks, tweets and videos from the popular social media platforms will from this summer start showing up on the silver screen, after Twitter sealed a deal with in-theater ad firm National CineMedia (NCM).
Actually, we first heard about the initiative last year, though it’s only now that more details are beginning to emerge.
According to Variety, NCM-affiliated theaters will screen a new one-minute sequence each week, featuring a mix of “trending movie and entertainment content powered by Twitter and Vine,” with the first one to be shown this summer across its 21,000 screens in 1,700 theaters.
The new pre-movie material could turn into a decent money-spinner for both Twitter – which also owns Vine – and NCM, as long as they can get enough sponsors interested. Talks are reportedly underway with Samsung, Microsoft, Best Buy, and Taco Bell to provide some of the content for the ad-based shows.
“For the first time, advertisers will be able to connect their ad on the big screen with the audience’s mobile device,” NCM president Cliff Marks said when the initiative was unveiled.
Despite being constantly reminded to switch off and put away smartphones before a movie starts, audience members will instead be encouraged to pull out their devices and get directly involved with the 60-second segments via hashtags. Come up with a clever tweet or Vine and your contribution could be included in a future show.
So if you’re planning on hitting the big screen this summer but are still waiting for the call from your agent (hang on, you don’t have an agent), it looks like you might have to go the Twitter/NCM route instead.
[via AdWeek]
