July 1, 2019

Odeon

Currently operating 133 cinemas in the UK and Ireland, Odeon is the largest cinema chain in the United Kingdom by market share. The world-famous Odeon Theater in Leicester Square has hosted over 700 of Europe’s biggest film premieres since the 1930s. The company operates a website and multiple mobile apps that allow customers to book tickets in advance. For true movie buffs, customer loyalty “Limitless” memberships are also offered, where on a 12-month contract basis, members are allowed to see cinema screenings – as often as they want – for a monthly fee.

The Challenge

The cinema industry is very competitive at the moment, with most people within the UK having local access to at least two cinema chains. As a tactic to secure sales and market share, Odeon sells advanced tickets online for popular blockbuster movies. These sales account for a significant portion of Odeon’s revenue. In order to double-down on advanced ticket sales, Odeon sought to overcome three major challenges along with its agency, Yellow Velo:

• Standing out from competition that offers the same, or similar, products and assets around a particular movie.
• Convincing customers that Odeon will offer a better film watching experience.
• Recognising individual customers together with their movie tastes and preferences.

“We use Selligent Marketing Cloud to plan communication around major movie releases. The canvas tool is easy to use, easy to adapt, and now we generate real-time reports to gauge customer insights, make quick decisions, and manage key stakeholders at Odeon.”– Jake Richards, Managing Director, Yellow Velo

The Strategy

Enlisting Selligent Marketing Cloud for a data-driven email marketing campaign, Odeon set out to build excitement for two major blockbuster movies, namely the latest The Avengers and Star Wars epics. Here’s a look at their script:

  • To make emails stand out in crowded inboxes, the team used kinetic and interactive features in the emails (including CSS mechanisms such as tabbed imagery, ‘tap-to-reveal’ sections, multi-layer scrolling imagery and so on).
  • To learn more about their customers, emails contained surveys and poll questions with data populated into Selligent consumer profiles for tailoring follow up communications.
  • To build excitement, phased communications strategy covered key moments throughout the life-cycle of the film release (pre-launch, post-premier, opening week, additional screening experiences such as 3D).
  • To serve on-taste content, audiences were segmented into groups such as ‘superfans’, fans of certain genres, or customers who had not seen previous films in the series – all targeted with tailored communications.

The Result

Far exceeding expectations and industry benchmarks, the data-driven email campaign yielded blockbuster results:

  • Open rates on average 13 per cent above industry benchmark and peaking for some campaigns at 58 per cent.
  • CTO rates of up to 10 per cent.
  • Revenue increase of up to 300 per cent.
  • Market share increase of up to 4 per cent.

Best of all, Odeon and Yellow Velo were able to leverage major campaign functionalities in a single marketing automation platform via Selligent Marketing Cloud.

“It’s also valuable to have all assets, content and journeys stored within Selligent, meaning we don’t need to rely on other platforms or software to deliver certain aspects. This has helped improve efficiencies and ensure we’re always able to hit deadlines.”– Jake Richards, Managing Director, Yellow Velo.