Notting Hill’s famous Electric Cinema has hosted film stars, rock stars and the occasional celebrity seeking refuge from public attention.
This week the 115-year-old landmark welcomed a new audience: mortgage brokers.
Commercial mortgage lender and bridging specialist TAB hired the cinema to watch England’s latest attempt to bring football home.
This was all very well and good but there was one problem.
For decades, cinema-goers seeking romance traditionally headed for the back row where they could get to know each other better without having to follow the plot too closely.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
The Electric took a different approach when owners Soho House removed the front row and installed six double beds.
The result was an unusual sight: brokers, BDMs and mortgage hacks stretched out beneath the big screen sipping wine.
Ahead of the big game James Staunton, the new head of comms at TAB, spoke to Soup and confessed he was nervous about the seating arrangements.
The prospect of dozens of brokers spending an evening in double beds, he suggested, was not entirely without risk.
Fortunately, Staunton’s concerns proved unfounded and the audience remained impeccably behaved.
England’s performance may have helped. It would have been been difficult for even the most adventurous broker to misbehave while jumping up repeatedly to celebrate England’s 4-2 victory over Croatia.
Since its inception in 2018, TAB has prided itself in its relationship-driven lending built on getting closer to brokers.
But by inviting brokers to watch the football from a double bed, have they now pushed the strategy to its limit?
