His Dark Media › News › Retailer Productions: Tesco goes to the Movies

Item published by Phit on 24th February. 0 Comments.

In late January, the supermarket mega-chain Tesco announced plans to expand into the film industry with the multi-million pound launch of its own production company, aimed to turn best-selling novels into movies. The move highlights Tesco's strategy to become more recognized as a retailer in media entertainment. Bolstered by a year of financial growth riding against the 2009 economic downturn, Tesco partners with Amber Entertainment in adapting films from books by well known authors including Jacqueline Wilson, Philip Pullman, Judy Blume, and Dick Francis.

In an interview with The Guardian, Eileen Maisel of Amber Entertainment explained what brought the partnership around, highlighting the ease of relationships between the film studio and authors. "We are able to involve the writers at every stage, even with the casting decisions. And Tesco sells an enormous amount of books, of course; so for an author to have his DVDs on the shelf alongside his books and to sell them simultaneously sounds like a very good thing," said Maisel.

The first release in the Tesco venture will be Paris Connections, adapted from the bestselling Jackie Collins story LA Connections and slated for filming on location in Paris in early February. Collins reworked the original story with the development company in effort to make the picture more cinematic. Other upcoming adaptations include another Jacqueline Wilson novel, The Worry Website, Judy Blume's children's story Tiger Eyes,  and a novel from Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart Victorian thriller series. Amber Entertainment is also in joint ownership with production company Cuba Pictures on the Susanna Clarke bestseller Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. 

Now lateral business branches are no new concept. As profit potentials they're a goldmine: new opportunities for earnings, new audiences to vend to, and new areas to market in. We've seen moves like this before. Starting from a background in animation, Disney has branched out virulently with company penetration beyond its media outlets in television channels and radio broadcasts, and into the retail zone with Disney stores, amusement industry with its (possibly) largest attractions, and even in non-owned retail arenas, Disney can be spotted: did you know you can paint your kitchen "Mickey's Hat Blue"? How about a "Tiggeriffic" orange bathroom? Hop down to your local chain home renovation store for more color choices.

What makes this move so spectacular is that Tesco is jumping in the opposite direction, from retail into media. If you think it seems unlikely that the bridge from brick-and-mortar purveyor of food staples and laundry stuffs can be gapped into the land of gold stars and glimmering teeth, it's worthwhile to mention that it's not just the world's third largest grocery retailer making moves toward movies, the world's largest grocery retailer - moreover, the world's largest retailer, period - is motioning to Tinseltown as well. Walmart announced a partnership with Proctor & Gamble in the two-hour made for TV movie Secrets of the Mountain. The Walmart motivation for the partnership was revealed in the press release: commercials for Walmart and P&G will air during the movie, and be prepared for some product placement. Secrets of the Mountain threatens from the get-go of sounding like a two-hour Walmart advertisement, but executives from the companies have high hopes that their core values - they say often missing from TV - will be highlighted throughout the movie: generosity, honesty and togetherness.

Most recently, Walmart purchased the online movie rental company VUDU, an internet-based movie rental company that streams to HD enabled television sets. This will mark Walmart's third attempt into movie rentals, following two unsuccessful attempts in 2005 and again in 2007.

As for Tesco getting the same type of product placement and commercial mention on its movies, Tesco Director of Entertainment, Rob Salter, assured The Guardian that "Apart from telling the film-makers what I don't want to see in Tesco, then there is no interference in the subject matter. Of course, I don't want anything too risqué. Nothing that would be 18-rated and that would not sit well on our shelves.

"Other than that, though, there is no editorial involvement from us. We have been sent a script of the first film, so we know the story. That's it."

Tesco will gain exclusive first sales on all DVDs produced through their studio. 

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