External Relations staff blog

“Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That’s the thing about painting, photography, cinema…..” David Lynch

If it’s on a gallery wall or projected on a screen in a dark cinema, it’s probably something I’d take a further look at and encourage others to do the same. Flickering Super 8 archival footage, fragments of history conserved on a VHS, a pop culture doc on Netflix or the murals from the good old radical days of Sussex still on our own campus classroom walls – they all tell a story and help us think about our own socio-political context in new ways.

When the opportunity came up to join the Independent Cinema Office’s 2018-19 REACH cohort – a course for marketeers who want to learn more about developing new audiences for cinema – it felt like an excellent piece of professional development.

It was also one of the starting blocks for our team at Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts to begin considering how to host, programme and develop a burgeoning film offer, for both the campus community and those in the city, hopefully adding a new strand to the visual culture ecology in Sussex.

My course started last year at the MAC, Birmingham, where I met the ICO REACH group and we looked at timelines for marketing to cinema audiences, what types of ways cinema audiences engage with marketing materials and how to target young audiences with certain types of programming via a talk with the Head of Tate Exchange. The latter was incredibly helpful, as one of the key points in organising our Cinema Club is to engage those likely to be on campus on a Sunday – the students who live on campus or who are up here to study. This first meeting was also a great chance to network with people running indie film festivals, marketing commercial cinemas and also in multi-disciplinary venues like me – and cook up ideas for promoting film.

We were then sent back to our venues to consider how we could use this knowledge in our own programmes and pass on to programmers, production and box office. We were also given a mentor and I was lucky to have David Sim, the Head of Curatorial for the ICO. We were also invited to see films at the ICO screening days which might work for the programme to suggest to our teams. I also went to see some films in Hastings and attended a marketing seminar there before we set off on our journey.

Cinema is probably the most workable visual medium for ACCA so we thought what we could do with that – we have an incredible screen with top of the range capabilities, comfy seats, a beautiful cafe bar and, in terms of programme, a set of relatively empty Sunday afternoons and a campus audience to entertain.

So here at ACCA we decided to run a Sunday cinema offer and thus Cinema Club was born. However we had to think: how could we make it different to what was on offer already in Brighton and Lewes and also something for the campus community? We settled on showing unique, often subtitled films  – old favourites, artist films or those rarely seen on the big screen. These would appeal to students across the different disciplines and of different nationalities living on campus. They might also attract film fans from further afield who are looking for something rare or different from the blockbusters on offer in town.

The ICO course also encouraged us to think about what else might encourage someone to come to our cinema – a food offer, some ‘additional activity’ or a ticket offer. This led us to our new brunch menu that’s now available before each film, as our DJ spins weekly tailored playlists inspired by the film. We have also been testing out multi-buy tickets so people make their cinema plans with us for the season.

We have been working with lots of Sussex academics to give an introduction to each film and to encourage their own students to come along and see a film. This weekend Dr Gerhard Wolf from the History department gave an engaging 10 minutes about life in East Germany ahead of The Lives of Others. Did you know that there are very few cars in that film because it took 10 years to save for a car in the GDR and then get on a waiting list once you had enough Deutsche Marks? Or that the secret police in East Germany gathered samples of clothing for ‘smell’ and saved them in little jars from ‘enemies of the state’?

The theme for Spring’s Cinema Club was ultimately driven by our Creative Director Laura, who was developing a theme of national identity and culture, land, borders, movement and migration across the wider Spring artistic programme. This led us to decide on choices that were global in outlook and made by artists and directors from all parts of the world but which also worked well for the audiences we had in mind.

Cinema marketing is quite last minute and budgets always very tight in the arts so we have relied on new digital ideas as well as our usual print and media tactics to get the word out there – plus some guerrilla print runs to the most student-y spots on campus. We’ve released Spotify playlists, special podcasts and even ‘Instagram storied’ reading lists to give people context or get them excited about what is on offer. I am also looking forward to encouraging people to come to Hi Xiangyu’s The Swim via WeChat as it is such a powerful platform.

Partnership has also been important for us in developing the programme. Our audiences for film have largely been built and ideas sparked from the curated programme Cinecity (Brighton’s film festival) that comes to the venue every November and we have also asked local curators to suggest films for the programme. This month we are working with Open Colour on an Africa film screening: Touki Bouki. This should bring a ‘new crowd’ to the venue who we can hopefully host again in the future and who will tell their friends about Cinema Club.

It’s now almost time to go back and report our project to the ICO. I am hoping that the case study of a regular Cinema Club for a campus audience (and to lure a Brighton audience away from a BN1 based Sunday roast) will be helpful for their research. I am also hoping that my participation on the course has brought some useful insight to our team. Most of all I hope that you can all come and see all the great titles we have on offer this term.

When I joined Sussex as Student Communications Manager in November 2018, I knew one acronym was going to become very familiar: NSS.

As a graduate of the University of Southampton and King’s College London, I understand the importance of student feedback. My previous roles working with Universities around the UK – on Student Volunteering Week, for example – showed me how the National Student Survey marks a key point in the academic year.

Communicating with students about the NSS is a high priority in my position. So far it’s been an excellent opportunity to get to know people across the University. I’m working closely with colleagues in Academic Development and Quality Enhancement (ADQE) and the Student Experience division. We’re coordinating campaign activities with support from Alex Fulton and Alison Field, and the oversight of Jayne Aldridge and Kelly Coate. This involves collaborating with schools, the digital and social media teams, the Students’ Union, the Library, SussexFood and others.

As well as progressing plans internally, I worked with design agency Chimney to produce print materials and digital assets. Hopefully you will have spotted these around campus and on social channels during the last couple of weeks!

My role also involves running the Digital Media Guru scheme alongside Emma Proctor. We’re thrilled to have Catherine, a final-year Psychology and Business Management student, creating social media content for the NSS. Catherine (pictured below) is doing a great job – take a look at recent Instagram stories to see for yourself.

A core part of this year’s campaign is the NSS café, open in Dine Central from noon until 3.30pm each weekday in February. The café is supported by Professional Services volunteers bearing iPads and the promise of freebies. Thanks to those of you helping out.

At the café final-year undergraduates can enjoy a complimentary hot drink while they fill in the survey. If they’ve already completed the survey online, they can stop by to pick up a £5 SussexFood voucher or printing credit – all eligible students who complete the NSS before it closes on 30 April can claim one of these from the NSS café or the Info Hub in the Library.

Footfall has been steady so far, but we’re adapting plans and introducing new tactics as we go. Thanks to Communications colleagues for handing out leaflets on several mornings this week. Neil Vowles gets special credit for his enthusiasm! If you’d like to offer an extra pair of hands for an hour or two this month, please let me know.

I’ve enjoyed chatting with final-year students around campus and wishing them good luck with the rest of their studies, too. These interactions have been a heartening reminder that their education is one of the main reasons we’re all here.

Over the next few months I’m looking forward to meeting more of our staff and students, and to reflecting on our approaches.

This January was the first time I worked at a Sussex graduation and, having received lots of feedback about the buzz and the busyness, I tried to embrace the role I was given; coordinating communications and ensuring we were working side-by-side with the rest of the division.

The work began behind-the-scenes months in advance with weekly meetings of the ‘graduation taskforce’. With colleagues in marketing, digital, social media, internal communications, alumni and events, we ran through logistics and shared ideas, identifying crossovers and new ways to work together.

For communications, our main focus was on sourcing graduate case studies, creating content with our honorary graduates and coordinating a photo stunt – all with the intention of engaging the media.

Conscious that this was my first graduation, I wanted to have maximum impact and we ran wild with stunt ideas from grinning graduates on the carousel by Brighton seafront to skating students on the ice rink by the Royal Pavilion. The trouble was, due to the time of year, none of these attractions were actually open …

With the unpredictable wintry weather to tackle as well (and the fact that a lot of the best ideas had already been done), we found ourselves returning to the drawing board time and time again. 

Thankfully, the strength of our honorary graduates started to shape a lot of our plans …

Thanks to James Hakner’s liaisons with Brighton and Hove Albion, Jacqui Bealing and Tom Walters were able to meet Chris Hughton and various members of the club at their training ground the week before Graduation. This resulted in a brilliant written feature and a video which had 12,000 views on Facebook and an incredible 88,900 views on Twitter.

It was amazing to have this content before the ceremony, and the fact that Chris was gathering so much interest quickly inspired our photo stunt…

And so it was that the morning before Winter Graduation, I found myself at the Amex eagerly buying several Brighton & Hove Albion footballs from the shop exactly one minute after they opened. I bravely ignored the looks of shop staff who were clearly trying to decide if I was a huge fan or just slightly mad…

Despite the fact we now had an idea and some props, we still didn’t actually have any students… With true Sussex spirit, myself, Molly Whyte and Dan Chard enlisted brave volunteers first thing on Thursday morning, ushering graduates to the freezing cold seafront to… have a kick-about.

Everything, including the weather, fell into place and although the image wasn’t picked up by press in the end, it did result in extra content for our social media team. 

Graduation quickly picked up speed from there and we began gathering more content with our honorary graduates.

Thankfully, we were in a good place with press even before graduation.

Jacqui had produced another brilliant feature with Clive Myrie and, as a result of a press release circulated earlier in the week, an article ran on the press industry news site, Press Gazette. Thanks to several phone calls the night before graduation, we then achieved further coverage before Clive even stepped foot in the Brighton Centre, with interviews on BBC Radio Sussex and Surrey.

But in the buzz of celebration, filming honorary graduates while still allowing them time to enjoy their day and keep their experience as stress free as possible, can be a bit of a challenge.

Like a slick military operation, we communicated the whereabouts of each honorary through a WhatsApp group in order to make sure we didn’t lose them in the excitement of the day. Thanks to brilliant questions by Tom Walters, and the unwavering support from Dan Chard, we ended up with two inspiring videos which have been an asset for social media.

One of my proudest moments was managing to pull off a photo with Chris Hughton, Clive Myrie and the Chancellor Sanjeev Bhaskar, seizing the opportunity when they were in the same place at the same time…

After the ceremonies, the work continued for our team, sending out press releases and footage of both Clive and Chris’s acceptance speeches to journalists (huge thanks to Phil Watten and his team for the speedy editing!)

As a result, parts of Clive’s speech were published by the Sussex Express and Brighton and Hove Independent.

But we were blown away by the Hughton effect.

Sky Sports News broadcast a clip from Chris’s speech to thousands. We also gained coverage in The Argus, ITV, Vavel, Sports Mole, We Are Brighton, Heart Sussex, ITV News Meridian and BBC South Today. We even gained a mention in each of Brighton & Hove Albion’s match reports over the following weekend.

While I was incredibly proud of all the coverage we managed to achieve, one of the best moments for me was on Friday afternoon as I walked through the Brighton Centre.

Passing through a hall of graduates and their families, I was reminded of the inspiring case studies gathered by the other media relation managers and written up superbly by Jacqui Bealing. I walked through a sea of smiling, excited faces and the mood was infectious.

I don’t think anyone else realised but when I got back to the press office, I couldn’t keep the smile off my face.