“It’s all about the details,” says Gonzalo Ulivi about the inaugural 11-screen
Silverspot Cinema, which opened on Sept. 11 in Naples, Florida. He counts down the amenities: “the marble floors in the bathrooms, the tiles in the lobby, the sculptured acoustic panels, the large leather seats with cupholder armrests...” The list of luxuries also includes 60 inches (152 cm) of row spacing versus the more traditional 45 inches (114 cm).
Included in the 33,000-square-foot (3,065 sq. m.) footprint are a spacious lobby, a full-service, 65-seat restaurant—serving delights such as “Hawaiian Salad” with grilled pineapple in Rum Blaze vinaigrette and “Burgers in Paradise” topped with braised onions and a choice of four cheeses—and a 20-seat lounge offering appetizers, wine and beer. At the concession stand, too, choices abound beyond movie theatre staples to include healthy and gourmet snacks, such as sushi, wraps, mini-croissants, roasted nuts, hummus and pita bread—all conveniently contained for carry-out into the theatre along with beer, wine and pastries.
Silverspot is both a “lifestyle theatre” and “boutique cinema,” Ulivi says, and local media concurred: “It’s anything but your typical movie house,” said the area’s NBC affiliate.
Gonzalo Ulivi is a third-generation cinema operator, whose family owns and operates 23
Cines Unidos (plus four in development) with some 169 screens in Venezuela for a 58% country market share. In 2007, Caracas-based Cines Unidos teamed up with Linzor Capital, a Latin American private-equity fund, to purchase 16 locations from Hoyts General Cinema South America Inc. in Argentina, Chile and Brazil, bringing the total number to 360 screens. But Silverspot is very much an independent entity in the United States. For its first U.S. venture, the company selected the
Mercato Center in Naples as the launching pad, with the slogan “Uptown. Upscale. Upbeat.”
Naples is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, notes Ariadna Navarro, principal of Asylum Company. “As a very dynamic marketplace, where the arts are actually happening, the neighborhood made sense and provided an amazing fit. This lifestyle center is so much about what we are all about: namely, to deliver a unique experience.” The New York City-based “marketing innovation consultant” has known the Silverspot players “for a very, very long time.” Navarro was involved with the project from the start.
How this “premium idea” came about in their home market, where like most of Latin America there is not a very large middle class, “was both a little bit by accident and a result of always wanting to improve and be on the cutting edge,” Navarro elaborates. At the time, the Cines Unidos team “had found a phenomenal location in Caracas, which was much smaller than their traditional multiplexes and in an area…that was very homogenous in its demographics and catering to more of an upper middle class.” After deploying the
premium-style concept to seven locations in Venezuela, the “natural evolution” was the United States, she feels. “They started studying the markets and locations here, [gradually] realizing that this concept didn’t really exist,” she insists. “Again, being that third-generation cinema exhibitor, the entire experience of going to the movies is sacred to them.”
“One of the advantages of being a foreign company,” Navarro believes, is “that you really have the freedom to roam around and get the best technology and fit-outs from around the world.” By way of example, she cites the international ticketing set-up—assigned seating via Web and on-site kiosks only, no attended box offices—with the back end on the Internet deployed via Mexican software. The seats are French, as Ulivi bought certain light fixtures in Paris as well and other lamps in Argentina, with the leather on the theatre seats coming from Colombia. “All these great things are contributing to a worldly feel,” she says. “And because they didn’t start in the U.S., where everything is more unified and comes with just so many requirements that you have to do things in a certain way, the Ulivi family has really been able to be innovative.”
The same goes for the choice of name. “Silverspot is not the same brand that they use in the rest of the countries,” Navarro explains. With 99.9% of her projects coming from the likes of Coca-Cola, AT&T, Citibank and Mercedes, she approached the name search very much “like I would for any one of those big brands.” With all those clients, Navarro “never had one that was so involved, which is great,” she assures. “It is their investment, their business and they are passionate about it. Because they are family-run, it is a very different approach from a corporation… They love this business. They live and breathe movies…that’s what they do.”
Asylum analyzed the cinema’s unique product offerings, “did a huge marketing analysis and studied the consumer.” Further in the process, “we tried to understand the actual experience as it relates to consumer needs and aspirations when it comes to a movie theatre.” The latter, she observes, “is a volume business and it’s not a branded service. People basically go to the theatre that is showing the movie they want to see and that is closest to them. You really don’t pick a movie theatre how you would pick a shirt, based on the design or because you like the image of the brand.”
To change that, along with numerous workshop groups, Ulivi and Navarro set out to create a brand-new identity “with the appropriate brand positioning and a full brand strategy.” This detailed analysis, she continues, resulted in some “hundred names from the beginning based on the three pillars that had emerged from our positioning of the brand.” From that point on, “we kept coming back to ‘spot,’” Navarro recalls. “Because of all the obvious connotations, such as ‘spotlight’ and ‘the spot is on you,’ but also as it is first and always about the experience.” When the name Silverspot finally came together “it was really so beautiful,” she declares. “Not to mention that you have the silver nitrate of the film and all allusions to the silver screen. It’s really all about creative inspiration… It’s not about us, but about
you, not about what we deliver but what
you are going to feel like walking out of here.”
For her part, Navarro contends, “We took the ‘anti’ movie theatre experience and turned it into something positive… There is no comparison! Silverspot is all about holding the moviegoing experience sacred and turning it into something like a two-hour vacation… And what’s your visual with that? When you finally forget your troubles, when you’re finally relaxed…where you go off the grid. It’s a place where you disconnect and you come out recharged.”
Navarro continues, “It’s a different approach from regular movie theatres. Even compared to other high-end options, this is not just about putting in leather seats and not a corporate approach to high-end theatres where things can get sort of bland and cookie-cutter.” She insists, “Silverspot is unique. Every single detail has been hand-picked by the owners… This is really about creating
the best possible experience for consumers. There’s no cutting corners. You go in there and you feel like you’re at The Four Seasons.”
Just as that exclusive gathering place is more than a hotel and restaurant, “we eventually want Silverspot to be more than a movie theatre.” Navarro envisions “the ‘café des artistes’ of the 21st century, where you can find writers, directors and people who are creative all getting together.”
Silverspot Vendors:
Strong film projectors, platters and lamp houses; Christie DLP Cinema projectors; Dolby 3D system and servers; CTron automation systems; Schneider and Minolta lenses; QSC amplifiers and speakers; Dolby Digital sound; installation by Cinema Equipment & Supplies; Harkness screens; masking by Nick Mulone & Sons; Tempo aisle lighting; Kelmar lighting dimmers.
Vasuarte carpeting; chandeliers and decorative lighting by Iluminación Aguero-Raku; artwork/design elements by Asylum Consulting; poster cases by Bass Industries; Gold Medal concession equipment; Vista concession and ticketing software; ticket stock and gift certificates by Printing Technlogies.
