The Undivided Screen
Clare Turner has spent 29 years at Pearl & Dean and has been its Chief Commercial Officer since February 2024. She joined in September 1996 because cinema was the obvious choice over TV and radio, and has spent three decades making the case for the last medium where audiences actually pay attention. Pearl & Dean turns 70 this year.
“The average view for social advertising is 1.3 seconds. The audience opted in and paid to be there.”
Clare Turner is Chief Commercial Officer of Pearl & Dean, the cinema advertising company founded in 1953, where she has spent her entire career since joining as Group Head in 1996. She oversees the commercial strategy across Pearl & Dean’s network of independent, premium, and high-street cinema partners, and leads the company’s partnerships and branded content business.
Clare came to Pearl & Dean from AC Nielsen and joined at a time when cinema was being told it was about to be displaced by home video. It has been told the same story by DVD, torrenting, and now streaming. Her response to each of these narratives is the same: FAME research, Pearl & Dean’s Film Audience Measurement and Evaluation data, which consistently shows that the heaviest streamers are also the heaviest cinema-goers. The audiences are not in competition. They are the same people.
Under Clare’s leadership, Pearl & Dean has developed branded partnerships with JLR/Everyman, National Parks/Wild Spaces nature documentary content in the ad reel, and Butcher’s Dog Food, whose doggy-friendly screenings became one of the most talked-about examples of purpose-led brand integration in cinema. The Asteroid music, first composed in 1968, remains Pearl & Dean’s sonic brand. Neuroscience research has tracked the anticipatory response it triggers in audiences the moment it plays.
“Heavy streamers are the heaviest cinema-goers. Streaming is not the death of cinema.”
“There is nowhere else you switch off for two to three hours. For a brand, that captive opted-in audience is unmatched.”
The attention metric case for cinema is quantified and specific. 24 out of 30 seconds of a cinema ad is actually viewed. The comparable figure for social is 1.3 seconds. Clare’s FAME research also shows that cinema audiences look forward to the ads and enjoy them, which is not a claim that can be made for any other advertising environment. The Asteroid music, first played in 1968, produces a measurable anticipatory response in neuroscience studies. The combination of sound design, darkness, scale, and opted-in attention is not replicable on any other screen.
“Among 15 to 34-year-olds, two thirds go to the cinema once a month or more. Our data is clear.”
The streaming-versus-cinema narrative has been declared settled in favour of streaming several times and has been wrong every time. Clare’s FAME data tells a consistent story: heavy media consumers are heavy consumers of all media, including cinema. The streaming platforms themselves now make films for theatrical release first. Apple, Amazon, and Netflix all commit content to cinemas because they understand the relationship. The lesson for media planners is that a cinema campaign does not cannibalise TV or streaming reach. It adds to it.
“Doggy-friendly screenings. JLR as Everyman’s car partner. Wild Spaces nature films in the reel. That is brand synergy.”
Pearl & Dean’s growth area is not standard IAB formats. It is partnerships built around meaningful brand alignment with cinema’s unique cultural position: communal, purposeful, premium. The Wild Spaces nature documentary content, quarterly mini-documentaries funded by National Parks and shown in the ad reel, is a model of purpose-led brand integration that no other medium can offer in the same way. Each of these is designed to create the kind of emotional association with the cinema experience that a banner ad cannot.
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