TESCO AND CASABLANCA: CLUBCARD PLUS LAUNCH
MOVIE CLIP LICENSING FOR TESCO’S CASABLANCA CAMPAIGN
BACKGROUND:
The UK’s biggest supermarket retailer, Tesco, wanted to launch their new Clubcard Plus product with a strong, standout campaign. The product was a paid membership scheme that gave customers a discount across Tesco grocery stores, Tesco Bank and Tesco Mobile. Since its launch in 1995, Tesco had already had over 19 million customers sign up to its Clubcard membership scheme. A strong campaign was needed to showcase the benefits of upgrading to Tesco’s Clubcard Plus product. We worked closely with Tesco and their creative agency to secure licensing for a clip from the famous movie Casablanca.
THE CALL TO BORN:
Tesco’s creative agency BBH London came to us with the idea of overdubbing an iconic film scene that would grab attention immediately. They were interested in movie clip licensing for an instantly recognisable scene from an iconic film. They came to the right place.
WHERE BORN LICENSING ADDED VALUE:
The team’s at BBH and Tesco agreed on an iconic scene from the 1942 classic, Casablanca. Once this had been agreed, we managed the licensing for all aspects of the campaign which included a number of different Rights Holders. We were able to leverage our strong licensing industry relationships to negotiate six licensing agreements across the film, talent and music featured in the campaign.
RESEARCH FOR MOVIE CLIP LICENSING:
There were a number of films and scenes of interest and we helped explore all possibilities along with suggesting other strong clips that fitted the brief. Once we had agreed on a short list, we approached the Rights Holder of each potential clip to discuss creative options and negotiate the movie clip licence fees.
THE APPROVAL PROCESS:
Managing approval from multiple Rights Holders can be complicated and time consuming. We managed the entire process so that the production team only had one point of contact instead of four. As per the licensing agreement, the film and talent companies were required to review and approve all creative material for Tesco’s campaign. This included the script, storyboards, edits at various stages and the final material. Warner Bros. reviewed material as Rights Holders of the Casablanca movie and the estates of Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains, each reviewed material on behalf of the featured talent.
THE LAUNCH:
The ‘Value You Can’t Stop Talking About’ campaign consisted of a 60” TVC film plus a number of shorter clips that were rolled out across the UK. Further edits with tweaked overdubbing to highlight specific products and offers were developed for Tesco Bank and Tesco Mobile.
Casablanca and all related characters and elements © and TM Turner Entertainment Co. (s19)
THE EXPERIENCE
Born Licensing managed the entire licensing process from start to finish, including research and development, negotiation of commercial terms, the contractual process, invoicing, the brand assurance / approval process and everything else that came up relating to the use of Casablanca and the three celebrity estates. We also assisted with the licensing of the track ‘As Time Goes By’.
“Working with the Born Licensing team was a total pleasure. We had a tricky situation in terms of time and creative - this together with our fair share US based rights holders & estates to contend with. Born Licensing’s calm approach together with their existing extensive knowledge of many rights holders helped us find our way through. Born licensing went over and above to deliver what was needed (including literally running contracts around town themselves to ensure signature and sign offs!) They are now my go to for anything licensing related.”
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