Boxoffice - August 2019

CINEMARK’S CARSON, CALIFORNIA, LOCATION PROMOTING ITS PRIVATE-LABEL XD PLF AUDITORIUMS
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CINEMARK
We launched Movie Club, the first
exhibitor-sponsored subscription program
in the U.S., in December of 2017. We’ve
been growing very consistently since that
time with nearly 700,000 subscribers
[as of July], roughly equivalent to 2,000
subscribers per location. It’s been a phenomenal
success with an extremely high
retention rate and engagement by the consumer.
I’ve been measuring engagement
by over 75 percent of the credits that we
hand out every month. People are using
it each and every month; they’re coming
more often, they’re buying more concessions,
and they’re being extremely loyal.
Last quarter we relaunched the overall
umbrella rewards program called Cinemark
Rewards, and that has both the free
component, which we’re calling Movie
Fan, and also the paid component, which
is Movie Club. There’s no change to Movie
Club, but on Movie Fan we added a lot
more rewards. We changed the system to
one point for each dollar spent. The early
results have been spectacular.
Your subscription plan, Movie Club,
hasn’t had too many modifications
since you rolled it out. Do you expect
making any modifications on it in the
near future?
One of the reasons we haven’t had to
do that is because we did a tremendous
amount of consumer research on the
front end and asked the consumer what
they were interested in, what they wanted
the most. The concept of having rollover
movie credits from month to month
was tremendously important, because
the consumer knows if they don’t use it
for a month or two, they won’t lose the
benefits. There’s also the shareability: if
you don’t use it for a month or two and
you’ve got three credits on your phone,
you can bring family and friends and use
all credits at the same time.
The second thing that consumers love
is the idea of a really simple, easy way
to execute discount on concessions. All
you have to do is show your membership
through your phone and you get 20
percent off all concessions. You don’t have
to build up a credit, you don’t have to
turn in a coupon, you don’t have to have
a promo number. It’s just 20 percent off.
The third thing we’ve succeeded in is
the ability to reserve a ticket online with
no online fees. It works like a family plan
by design; if you’re a member and you
want to bring your partner along with you,
you have the ability to do so at the same
price. You can even buy credits if you want
to bring three or four people with you.
There’s no commitment. We modeled
that after the streaming platforms; you
sign up on an app and you can cancel
it on an app. It’s easy in, easy out. It’s
month to month at a very reasonable
price. We’re constantly looking for ways
AUGUST 2019
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