Movio’s Holly Jones looks at post-CV19 marketing plans

Cinema with[out] the personal touch?

Though it may sound counter-intuitive, cinema literally without the personal touch is the current order of the day. Movio’s head of marketing Holly Jones highlights how exhibitors can maintain great service and communication in a socially distanced world.

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ENJAMIN ZECCOLA, CHIEF executive of Palace Cinemas in Australia recently said “People are more into storytelling now than ever. And the greatest storytelling form is cinema. From what people are saying to us on social media and email, they just can’t wait to come back to the cinema.”

There’s no denying that in the past few weeks there has been a noticeable increase in conversation around cinemas

reopening, how they plan to do so and whether moviegoers will confidently return straight away. Managing a cinema business is complex. Reopening after the CV19 lockdown makes it doubly so. There are so many elements that need to be considered carefully — and technology plays an essential role in ensuring a successful and safe reopening. The tips and best practices on these pages come from Vista Cinema and Movio — significantly, our expertise covers two key areas of reopening; operations and guest communication. Along the way we will consider the impacts on staff and moviegoers.

When cinemas plan to reopen a strong emphasis will be on adapting. This isn’t business as usual — almost every element of the cinema will need to be adapted, from booking tickets and seats to ordering concessions and the experience once inside the auditorium. The guidance below considers first steps to take and tools to help streamline the process.

Booking: an emphasis on self-service

When it comes to tickets, much prominence should be given to a self-serve experience, to keep both moviegoers and staff safe and comfortable when you reopen. Self-serve can start at home, by encouraging moviegoers to book tickets through your website or app, meaning less contact at the site. The online booking process is also a great opportunity for contact tracing as required by some authorities. However, collecting your moviegoers’ details may be mandatory across all your sales channels, from web, app, kiosk and POS.

The advent of contactless technology hasn’t come a moment too soon for cinemas — instilling confidence in customers is the central to success

At the cinema: a contactless connection

Removing the need for direct contact with a staff member can be fairly easily achieved at the cinema. An easy win is to enable food and beverage purchases via a mobile app or kiosk. Purchases through your app allow moviegoers to use their devices to buy food and app notifications inform them when the order is ready to collect, reducing queues. Kiosks are a self-service alternative, and can shorten wait times, allowing you to operate with reduced staff and with social distancing measures in place. Finally, use of digital signage to display order status can reduce queues and gatherings in one place. Ordering via your app and kiosk can provide a seamless experience for customers and protecting your front-ofhouse and kitchen staff with reduced interactions. Make entry to screenings quick and contactless by allowing moviegoers to scan their own tickets, whether digital or paper printed. This eliminates another unnecessary human interaction and can require limited supervision, benefiting your staff and your moviegoers.

1Automating social distancing at the seatselection stage 2 Paperless ticketing: reducing the need for physical touchpoints 3 Additional suggestions for safe operations in your cinemas

Introduce social-distance seating at the seat-selection stage. Features such as the dynamic social distancing solution from Vista Cinema automatically force gaps between bookings, with programming parameters that must be respected to be approved. A cinema can easily put this in place by either recommending seats that are far enough from others or by only allowing bookings that match specific gap rules. If a moviegoer selects a seat that is too close

to another for the

rules you set, then an error message will prompt the selection of an appropriate seat. Enhance the contactless experience for moviegoers by sending paperless digital tickets, further reducing a need for physical interaction and printing. ‘Living Ticket’ technology from Vista provides a highly dynamic ticket that automatically updates if any change is made on the cinema side, for example to a screening time or seat selection. This also allows additional

purchases, such as concessions, to be added to the same ticket, further continuing the contactless experience. The combination of booking online, advance contact tracing, social-distance seating and a digital ticket means you and your moviegoer is already prepared for a selfserve experience before they even set foot in the cinema. • Reassure moviegoers and staff of safety by displaying health and hygiene measures you have adopted on digital signage. • Enforce cleaning measures by scheduling regular checks for the team to perform in each section of the theatre.

• Leverage spot-by-spot reviews (for example, with Vista’s InTouch for example) which displays levels of sanitisation in your cinema to confirm each area in your site meets standard of service required. • For each screening, you can easily extract a list of moviegoers, their contact details and the seats each of them occupied for contact tracing purposes. • A staff scheduling tool (such as MovieTeam) can help you run efficiently by managing labour costs, hiring and onboarding staff.

Communication is critical

Many moviegoers can’t wait to return to cinemas, but there will be others that need reassurance and encouragement. Reigniting attendance, keeping consistent communication and ensuring return visits will be vital in the early stages of reopening. Marketing campaign ideas should focus on two key stages, pre re-opening and reopening itself. Keep in mind that it’s important to consider the circumstances of your own market before sending any communications.

Before re-opening: restoring confidence

If you have not been regularly sending emails during closure, your email servers will likely need to be warmed up to maintain a positive email sender reputation and ensure strong deliverability. If this applies to you: • Inform your campaign management tool provider before your start sending campaigns so they can track volume and spam complaints. • Limit the number of emails you send each week (for example, you could target only the most engaged and recent moviegoers first), then slowly increase your email volume over a few weeks.

• Keep an eye on delivery rates and bounces.

One-off campaigns you can send your moviegoers could be to announce re-opening preparations or the date if you know it, alert them that you have tickets on sale or simply communicate measures you’re taking to ensure a safe opening. Some tips for this first communication:

• Consider your tone of voice and content and be aware of the news and external events when setting up this campaign. • While Hollywood studios may have yet to announce new release dates, you can entice moviegoers to re-watch trailers once release dates are confirmed or use this as an opportunity to promote local content, non-Hollywood or catalogue titles. • Share safety measures taken on site to reassure customers you’re taking necessary steps to ensure a safe environment. • Communicate to members that have made a purchase during lockdown (for a voucher for example) and let them know when you are reopening so they can plan their visit.

If you have a loyalty programme, it is vital to keep communication consistent with loyalty members, especially as you prepare to re-open. Inform them how reopening affects their benefits:

• Update members who had points or benefits that expired during closure, consider re-applying or extending the validity period and communicating this to them. • Equally some members may have had membership expire during closure — again, consider extending their membership and/or compensating for the ‘lost months’. lockdown, remind them of their benefits and inform them when they can visit. campaign and make suggestions on once the cinema is open again.

Finally, if you paused any recurring or automated campaigns, this would be a good time to review and reactivate them. You may need to update wording or the audience segmentation before these campaigns are activated again.

Re-opening: attracting audiences back

As cinemas open again and sessions begin screening, you will need to continue to create engaging campaigns that encourage moviegoers’ repeat visitation. To build excitement, place an emphasis on content you do have available. Even with limited content, you can highlight the moviegoing experience, reminding people why movies are so amazing at the cinema. Include trailers, fun scenes or behind-the-scene clips or focus on themed emails with legacy titles (like “Top Gun”, “Grease” or a Horror evening). You could also implement a date-night experience or sing-along showing to make an event of the moviegoers’ experience. Why not have customers vote for retro titles they’d most like to watch in the cinema?

These first communications are a great time to consider pairing a pre-packaged food item with alternative movie • Send a campaign to those members who signed up during

titles to encourage F&B spend. It is a good opportunity to remind moviegoers of contactless concession systems or processes in place, like ordering through your app or kiosk.

Once you have reopened, this is the time to consider setting up or reactivating your recurring and automated

campaigns for your loyalty members. Recurring campaigns are useful if you would like a member to receive campaigns automatically when an event happens or if they get to a

• Create excitement with members and send a countdown

how they can use points and benefits

certain state, They can also help to keep encouraging cinema visitation. For example, you could send

“Even with limited content, you can still remind people why movies are so great in cinemas.”

a campaign offer to members who — once they visit the cinema — will receive free popcorn if they visit again in the next 14 days. Automated campaigns are useful for both pre- and postsession engagement with members.

Before a session, remind members of safety measures you’re taking and how you’ve adapted your cinemas so there are no surprises when they visit (for example, staff may wear masks or protective equipment). After a session, keep your engagement up by sending surveys asking for feedback on their experience and reinforce that the money spent in the cinema will continue to support your business, staff and the industry.

With the pent up demand to socialise once again, share moments with friends and family and to be entertained beyond the confines of online and inhome content; cinemas are going to be a muchneeded escape for many people post lockdown. With the right operations and marketing plans in place, cinemas will be able to shift their focus to what this industry has always excelled in — delivering amazing and entertaining experiences to guests, to keep them coming back for more!

Pre- and post-engagement mobile app notifications have a role to play in encouraging the continuation of the pre-CV19 habit of cinema-going