Marketing Executive
Vue Cinemas

Charlie C

0:00:03 My name’s Charlie C and I am the Local Area Marketing Executive for the North for Vue Cinemas. My job consists of looking after 35 cinemas across the north of the country, so kind of from Cambridge to Aberdeen up and all the local area marketing, or LAM as we call it, what events they have. So it could be charity screenings, it could be kids’ parties, it could be premiers, it could be anything like that and any activity they want to do.

00:00:27 It also includes any advertising they want to do in papers or on websites or shopping centres and everything like that. So it’s a huge range of stuff.

00:00:38 Probably I could never imagine I’d start this when I was at school. I could never imagine I’d be doing this. But as my kind of school life went on, I do a more media route and then kind of just fell into this later on in life. Before this, I was a Cinema manager. Before that, I was a Restaurant Manager and worked for a big restaurant company for years and then before that, I was 18 when I got my first management job.

00:01:001 I was a waitress in a cocktail bar and I was loving it really. I was just doing it part time while I was at college and then full time over the summer holidays trying to earn as much money as I could. It was brilliant getting tips and things like that, and the week I went to hand in my notice, they said we’ve got a management position, do you want to go for that? And I was like okay, I won’t leave, I’ll go and do that, and it was brilliant. I just got my first management job and got to manage a team of about 15 people which was really good but really scary as well ‘cos well most of them were older than me. So trying to tell someone that’s 45 you go and clean the kitchen, it was like oh stop but that was really interesting and made me learn a lot of things for like for later on that has lasted for years so it really helped.

00:01:42 I’ve had really varied kind of management so during that, there’s been loads of different obstacles going from weird things like trying to recruit 30 people, that’s a real obstacle and getting pressure from your boss to do that, that was difficult. Other things, I was involved in a break-in at one of the pubs and we were kind of robbed in the day, that was really, that was scary. Other things like organising great big like parties, people come in and want to do the 40th birthday and it’s all in your control.

00:02:10 You know, and trying to think I don’t want to ruin someone’s 40th birthday, I’ve got to get 50 meals out all at the same time and that kind of thing. So there are others, there’s different types of obstacles that you think oh I’ve really got to get this right, you know, and there’s lots of pressure and not just internal pressure but external as well. So you have to think about, you know, your bosses and people above that.

00:02:29 A bit of a turning point. I was really happy, I was in a different pub in a different area and really busy and then I applied for a recruitment website just as a practice and thought I’ll get my CV, you know, I haven’t done this for years, get it all polished and things.

00:02:42 Maybe go for a couple of practice interviews. I went for one practice interview for Vue Cinemas and thought I’ll just go for the practice ‘cos I don’t really want to leave my job. I was the licensee as well so it was a really good job and then I got a call for a second interview and I thought oh I didn’t really want to go for this job.

00:02:53 And then I got called for the second interview and then got offered the job that day and I was like oh I’m in a really good job and getting offered a really another good job. So I thought, you know, I thought it’d be really scary and I wouldn’t be able to do restaurant or pub management and then cinema management, I thought it would be really different but it was so easy to transfer the two so I’m really glad I did the change.

00:03:17 I’ve just started this job so I don’t know, I’m thinking about career plans and future. This job’s opened up a load of possibilities for me now. I thought marketing would be really simple, you know, but there’s loads of other things you can go into and being in the film industry as well, there’s other, that side of it that you could go into so there’s so many possibilities.

00:03:34 I’ve just started and my head is buzzing with loads of ideas of I want to do this, I want to do this but I’m still really learning this side of it so I’ve got to take some time, learn as much as I can and then you can go off into any field. Not that I want to leave but I’m just thinking of progressions of stuff so it’s really, you know, I could do film, I could do any type of different marketing and there’s loads of media and web and that side of it. It’s a complete other world that you could possibly tap into so there’s loads of prospects.

ENDS