The Spanish video retail association the Asociación Nacional de Empresarios Mayoristas del Sector Videográfico (ANEMSEVI) has launched a nationwide Blu-ray Disc promotional campaign giving away free 3D BD players. Run through video retail and video rental stores in Spain, the (LG) players will be given to customers who spend over €100 in stores during the period from October until Christmas 2013.

In a note, IHS Screen Digest reckons ANEMSEVI hopes that upwards of 80% of all national stores stocking video products in Spain will take part in the current promotion, thus helping to raise and renew consumer awareness of the format. The campaign promotes the lead 3D Blu-ray titles released this quarter. Some 500,000 leaflets have been distributes to the video stores.

Once one of the Big Five European video markets, the decline in video consumption in Spain has been exacerbated by the economic downturn in recent years and exaggerated by rampant online video piracy, analysts Thomas Nash and Tony Gunnarsson explain. Since 2005, the Spanish video market has declined in value from €708 million to just €225 million in 2012, a drop of 68%. This led to Universal entering into a partnership agreement for video distribution with Paramount in January 2011 and a second agreement between Sony and Twentieth Century Fox in October 2013. This effectively leaves only four of the six US majors operating in the country.

Blu-ray only represents a small proportion of the Spanish market today - in terms of consumer spending, BD is valued at €38 million in 2012, reflecting 16.8% of the total physical market in Spain compared to 19% of the total market in Western Europe. The promotional campaign aims to further raise awareness and educate consumers on the benefits of the hi-def video format.

Nash and Gunnarsson note that the promotion will run in the countdown to the ratification of the much debated and highly public amendments to Spain's intellectual piracy legislation, due by the end of the year. The updates to the law will enable the government to place substantial fines on any websites that violate copyright protection laws, including websites that enable intellectual property theft via third-parties.

Story filed 17.11.13