Guest · Publishers and media owners
Clare Turner
Chief Commercial Officer, Pearl & Dean
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.
About
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.
Career34 years
- 2024 to now Pearl & Dean Chief Commercial Officer
- 2018 to 2024 Pearl & Dean Sales Director
- 2011 to 2018 Pearl & Dean Client Services Director
- 2004 to 2011 Pearl & Dean Sales Director
Show earlier roles: Pearl & Dean, AC Nielsen
- 2001 to 2004 Pearl & Dean Agency Sales Director
- 1996 to 2001 Pearl & Dean Group Head
- 1992 to 1993 AC Nielsen Executive
How Clare thinks3 convictions
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Cinema is the last great attention medium
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.
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Streaming complements cinema; heavy streamers are heavy cinema-goers
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.
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The future of cinema is purposeful brand partnerships
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.
