Advertising Case Study

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema

Company Background Since 1997, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has provided a unique combination of theater and restaurant offerings, showing first-run and independent films while providing in-theater food and beverage services. The company has 10 locations nationally, including four in Austin, Texas, where the company is based. Objective Alamo Drafthouse Cinema was one of the first businesses to participate in the beta launch of Facebook Deals in November 2010. Deals allows businesses to incentivize people to check in on their mobile devices by rewarding them with individual discounts, shared savings with friends, repeat visits, or donations for good causes. Alamo wanted to use Deals as a way to reward its most loyal customers and to expand its social media marketing efforts. Approach As part of the Alamo offer, people whochecked in at any of the companys theaters on Facebook Placesa free service that gives a businesss physical store location a presence on Facebookwere offered a limited edition Alamo Drafthouse Cinema pint glass. The company also decided to add a fun, competitive element to their deal by rewarding customers with a free screening at the theater that experienced the most check-ins over a one-week period. To publicize the Deals offer, Alamo posted information about its deal on its Facebook Page, a free public profile that enables companies to share its business and products with customers on an ongoing basis. As of mid December 2010, more than 68,000 people were connected to the Facebook Page for Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, giving the company a substantial base of users to message about the offer.

Facebook Executive Summary

Client:

facebook.com/alamodrafthouse Objective: To reward the most loyal customers and to raise awareness of the brand on Facebook Approach: Creating a Deal that gave users an opportunity to get a free pint glass and the chance to see a free screening of a movie. Key Takeaways: Deals can give businesses an easy way to thank their regular customers and solidify their loyalty Deals are particularly successful when the product or service being offered is something that is of particular value or interest to the customer Marketing a deal online and offline is key to the deals success. Staff communication, flyers, and general deal awareness are great ways to get people to recognize a deal and visit the business.

Advertising Case Study

A lot of word of mouth got around. A lot of people were excited for the reward.
Caitlin Stevens Promotions Director, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
In addition to using other social media to raise awareness of the Deal, the company distributed flyers about the deal that its staff could hand out when issuing movie tickets. John Gross, Alamos Franchise Creative Director, also created a video clip about the deal that was shown on screen before every movie began. It was a little, 30-second spot that said pull out your phone right now, check in on Facebook, and you get this pint glass, John says. Each time a customer checked in using Facebook Places to claim their deal, the action created a check-in story in friends News Feeds, telling them that the user had claimed a deal at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

Results More than 5,100 people checked in to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema locations in Austin alone, creating check in stories, which helped extend the brands reach to new customers. Overall, the company was able to distribute nearly 10,000 pint glasses to its most loyal customers as part of the deals offer During the offer period, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema saw a higher level of engagement and Page likes. We saw a lot of really good feedback from our regular customers on our Facebook Page, says Caitlin Stevens, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema promotions director. There were a lot of people who said they got to see a movie and thanks for the free pint glass. A lot of word of mouth got around. A lot of people who were excited for the reward were coming. The Future Alamo Drafthouse Cinema says it is considering running new deals, perhaps a discount on a movie or a reward for their longstanding customers.