Digital Marketing Plan for CITY Cinemas

Introduction

Digital marketing plan is known for sharing significant details as regards actions or campaigns. This equally applies to CITY Cinemas Company which aims at bringing the city cinemas back to life. The key mission of CITY Cinemas entails creating an enhanced and almost stylish cinema experience, which would counter the multiplex culture for the purposes of attracting different audience. CITY Cinemas first opened in the year 2015 and currently they have 8 cinemas across the major regional cities in the country. The main target for this organization entails attracting the most discerning cinema goers to have experience in a range of films, the quality of service and enjoy the surroundings. It is also said that local advertisements were run when every venue was opened while press and public relations were supported by social media advertising, as well as a website that hosted an online booking facility. To attract new memberships, CITY Cinemas is said to have launched the CITY PRIVILEGE program that encouraged people to sign-up before being issued with a unique membership number and a personalized card.

External Analysis

PESTEL Analysis

Political factors: United Kingdom is essentially regarded as a constitutional monarchy. It is therefore a stable and fair country crowded with a lot of opportunities. The entertainment has its way because of power bestowed on the public in influencing the inner workings (Aithal 2017). The Political stability and the presence of a proactive government mean that any party can successfully the business without a lot of interference.

Economic factors: UK is regarded to have a strong economic position when compared to others. It has with it a diverse economic as well as high GDP. The large population gives room for even small industries to be profitable (Jones et al. 2016). A diversified economy means that it gives a fair chance to private and public sectors. The entertainment industry has significantly gained from this and the scope of the free market.

Socio-cultural factors: UK has many public services offered free of charge. This would be an advantage to any party that would be interested in hosting a social function. UK is regarded to be densely populated with around 64.1 million inhabitants. This means a significant market to the entertainment industry. The country is also open to migration, which attracts a cosmopolitan environment.

Technological factors: Being one of the developed countries, UK has good access to technology. This is characterized by the quality of the innovation skills, internal competition which stimulates growth, expertise in information technology and science, as well as effective laws associated to intellectual property said to be significant in the entertainment industry.

Environmental factors: Most of the economic factors would influence the environment. United Kingdom has however made significant moves in supporting improvements that tend to reduce the negative impact (Peters and Roeder 2016). Newspapers, charities, local councils, government and many other stakeholders have adopted initiatives that bolster environmental awareness.

Legal factors: UK is observant of the rights to freedom including expression and opinions. It is also observant to regulations that provide a proper guide to media and entertainment industry. Therefore, players in the entertainment industry have the freedom to assemble but still should be aware of the regulations that exert the limits.

Market Trends

The entertainment and media sector in the UK looks forward to maintaining healthy growth levels before the year 2022. The industry is set to grow by £76 billion before them with virtual reality carrying the most streaming services. Before 2022, UK is seen to maintain the influential position of the big spenders on cinema and video on demand services like Amazon prime and Netflix. More attention given to cinema indicate that around 42% of the consumers concentrate more on trailers they seem to have seen in cinema halls. The Mintel’s report indicates that reviews from moviegoers seem to be trustworthy when compared to critic reviews and advertisements. Apart from the attention given to moviegoers, there is also a growing gap for advanced tickets, which has closely been linked to online booking. Seat reservations and digital ticket purchase have attracted new convenience and experience of going to the cinema. The Mintel reports still indicate the figure of moviegoers said to have pre-booked the tickets tend to increase on annual basis with at least 39% seen using advanced methods while bagging their seats.

Porter’s Five Forces of the UK Entertainment Industry

Bargaining Power of Buyers: In the UK entertainment industry, buyers have immense bargaining powers in that there are no switching costs for clients. The immense powers are largely fuelled by a wide range of offers provided in terms of films.

Bargaining power of suppliers: Suppliers have significant bargaining powers in the entertainment and film industry as compared to other industries (Ural 2014). This nature is bolstered by the popularity of actors who are classified as suppliers while serving as human resources at the same time.

Competitive Rivalry: The UK entertainment industry has the most intense competitive rivalry as major companies try out-do one another (Bertozzi et al. 2017). The most dominant players include Walt Disney, Fox Filmed and Paramount Pictures, which have also secured an influential position in the global arena.

Threat of substitute products: The threat of substitute products is immense in the entertainment industry. This has largely been due to increasing popularity of the social networking websites like YouTube and Facebook. Most of the cinemagoers are also turning towards video games as another source of entertainment.

Threat of new entrants: Television, film and music entertainment is faced with moderate levels of threat of new entrants as a result of extreme costs (Bertozzi et al. 2017). However, information technology and growth of internet seems to have increased new entrants in the industry thereby attracting low cost barriers.

Competitors

CITY Cinemas are seen to compere more directly with Everyman and Picturehouse. However, there is still a feeling that the market is likely to be tempted away especially from the multiplexes. A number o cinema chains are seen to run smoothly via the monthly membership schemes while offering unlimited tickets at a monthly fee. Additional offer points schemes include off peak schemes, tie ups and online booking savings. However, CITY Cinemas is in pursuit of a point of difference.

Internal Analysis

Customer’s analysis

Most of the pay-TV subscribers are essentially re-examining the value received from the key service providers. Almost half of the subscribers report cases of dissatisfaction with around 70% feeling that they are little value compared to what they pay for. Most of the consumers end up halting the pay-TV subscriptions as they pursue the streaming video on-demand. This came after they realized that they needed several subscriptions for the purposes of satisfying content viewing preferences. Reports have indicated that there is likelihood that the industry is facing an imminent consumer subscription fatigue as a result of too many payments and subscriptions at the same time (Yüksel 2012). Based on this situation, most of the providers will be forced to re-aggregate part of their offerings while trying to compete with the rest of the options. Media companies are currently re-evaluating content strategies while trying to invest more in virtual reality. The same goes to social media companies, which are in pursuit of the video content broadcasting space. Social networks are heavily marrying exceptional experiences while convincing members to tune in the short-form videos. Amid the dynamics, the cinematic experience is never left behind (Khan et al. 2015). Despite the fact that it is regarded as being traditional, players are struggling to revamp it with the primary intent of attracting a new experience that would suit the customer taste. This must be the reason as to why CITY Cinemas is closely targeting the more discerning cinema goers of all ages who value experience, range of films, art house, retro and foreign and quality services. CITY Cinemas understands that customers tend to be selective while they seem not to be comprehensive of the cheap night out (Ranganathan 2015). Perhaps, they would like to watch the film while having a glass of wine or cocktail but would hate sitting around people eating chips or burgers or rustling sweet wrappers.

SWOT Analysis

Strength: CITY Cinemas has a strong online presence that attracts new membership. This is supported by a website that hosts an online booking facility. CITY enhances Press and Public Relations through the vast use of social media. Booking data is centralized as well as analysed with the help of the drive centralized communications while supporting future planning.

Weaknesses: CITY Cinemas only has a small as well as inexperienced team, which needs more help. The organization also lacks expertise in using the available data, which can be helpful in developing integrated communication strategy.

Opportunities: The newly-developed app can be customized to provide additional details regarding memberships and how to use available data. There is still room for digital marketing given the growth of internet and mobile technologies.

Threats: CITY Cinemas still faces stiff competition from established firms that have been in the entertainment industry for long. Lack of knowledge in data analytics posits an imminent danger as a result of improper analysis of market trends.

Key issues

CITY Cinemas has clear roadmap on how to bolster membership through digital channels. While the organization seems to have had an online booking facility, there are still doubts on how CITY Cinemas has interlinked the technologies for the benefit of the organization. While data analytics seems to posit a great challenge between data collection and strategy formulation, CITY Cinemas suffers most from digital breakdown at the point where members are issued with cards instead of being offered with an equally digital platform.

SMART objectives

To embrace integrated digital platforms that would work together for the purposes of growing active CITY PRIVILEGE membership by 20000 over a period of six months starting from September

To achieve 100% online bookings by eliminating the digital breakdown through reduction of CITY PRIVILEGE Cards from 10000 to zero in a span of three months starting from September

Strategy

Segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP)

Segmentation constitutes identification of the market that needs to be segmented. In UK, Cinema admissions range between 165-170 million in a year over the last 15 years. The common cinema attendees are of age between 15 and 24 years. This age bracket contributes to 28% of the total cinema goers. Findings also have it that the ratio of young adults to aging population that go to cinema halls is 3:1. Both in terms of gender and age, UK has experienced increased representation in terms of the cinema audiences from the year 2008 to 2017. Based on these segments, it is difficult to point out the target. However, CITY Cinemas intends to attract all cinemagoers while trying to introduce a difference in the cinematic experience. This is the ultimate position of the organization, which is trying to establish roots in the UK entertainment industry.

Customer personas

Families are also fond of having fun and this influences their moving-going decisions. Perhaps, the aging in the family would want to have stree free experiences, which they mostly have them at cinemas.

Channel strategy

CITY Cinemas adopts multi-channel strategy that has a common goal of attracting more sign-ups while passing across a principle message of an enhanced cinematic experience. Within the multi-channel strategy, quarterly emails are commonly sent to CITY PRIVILEGE members. To the effect of real-time communication, the newly developed app taps on notifications before sending them to potential members (Sigismondi 2011). A subsequent consideration of social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube only supports links, which can redirect clients to the sign-up page on the company website. While YouTube shares short videos linked to the cinematic experience, pop-ups, inform of ads, prompts the members to sign-up before accessing an app that would give them updates.

Communication strategy

CITY Cinemas shall adopt the integrated digital communication strategy, which provides no chance for print media or any other traditional platform. The strategy ensures that content is produced on a reliable and regular basis thereby expanding the customer base (Wesley and Barczak 2016). For the purposes of attracting highest level of awareness as well as involvement, CITY Cinemas taps into sharable content, appealing stories and more personalized communication.

Tactics and actions

Email marketing

While it is regarded as a digital platform, it is effective more effective for personalized communication. It involves sending a commercial message to a given group of people. There are almost 3.9 billion email users across the world. Around 76% of the United Kingdom businesses have described email marketing as being very important (Georgantzas and Katsamakas 2017). As part of the multi-channel strategy and integrated digital communication, emails will be effective in enhancing personalized experience by sending updates regarding CITY PRIVILEGE loyalty program, the event calendar and policies that CITY Cinemas would have put in place. Emails would serve as a priority to potential members who would get an advance notice of new program of films that will the next three subsequent months.

Facebook

Facebook is the most influential network across the world. Statistics have it that there are 2.41 billion active users on monthly basis across the world as established in June 2019. There is consistent 8% increase in the number of Facebook users on annual basis. Subsequently, there are 42 million Facebook users in the UK, which posits a significant segment of cinemagoers for CITY Cinemas. Facebook becomes a significant tool at the centre of the multi-channel strategy adopted by CITY Cinemas. The platform shall host a Facebook fan page where the organization will share stories, cinematic experiences and even short videos. The videos will showcase the cinema halls, the masses and the fun people experience while being entertained (Vogel 2014). The videos carry with them links, which shall appear as pop-ups or ads which redirect the potential member to the CITY PRIVILEGE signup page.

YouTube

YouT

Company Website

This is the main platform members would be accessing for updates and any other details regarding the CITY PRIVILEGE loyalty program. The website also displays the member’s portals where one is required to provide credentials before accessing further details. The website will also share important links to either YouTube videos or even Facebook fan page which carries significant content regarding what is being offered by CITY Cinemas (Davidovici-Nora 2014). The company website also supports an online booking facility, which allows members that received emails to feed the “priority” code as they access films listed for the next three months. The priority codes shall be issued through quarterly emails, or new emails send to members upon verification of their membership.

Newly-Developed App

Previously, CITY PRIVILEGE launch activity encouraged people to sign-up using their iPads. Membership is confirmed via a post with personalized cards bearing a unique membership number. However, the development of the new app will ensure that members enjoy an all-round digital experience with the app replacing membership cards. The Newly-Developed App is linked to the company website and allows members to log in as they access notifications, allow them to book for the café bar and cinema. Such experience is believed to prompt more members to enrol in the loyalty program. The app shall be hosted in the Google Play store which can easily be accessed through smartphones and iPads. The App shall also share news and updates reflected on the newsletters send via email.

CITY PRIVILEGE Program

This is a loyalty program that defines the content side of the digital strategy. It takes a significant side of the design process because this is what is reflected in the links that will be accessed via YouTube or Facebook. The program shall provide advance notice on new program of the films scheduled for the next three months. The program also provides the member login area as well as 10% discount on the ticket prices and no booking charges. Lastly, the program offers special invitations t the previewed screens as well as attracts the pre and post-film discussions.

Control and Contingency

Control will be achieved through monthly reports, which would reflect the number of signups and the scale of memberships. Based on the monthly feedback, CITY Cinemas will thereby decide on the segments from which to collect the 20000 new members. CITY Cinemas will further monitor the traffic on YouTube and Facebook for the purposes of establishing the contact frequency. Based on this, CITY Cinemas can determine cost effective offers, which are influenced by profitable segments.

References

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