sarah Biteau, auteur/autrice sur Adictiz

Cinema marketing strategies: using gamification to promote a film

by sarah Biteau | Nov 12, 2024 | Branding, Branding, Captivate the audience, Captivate the audience, Non classifié(e)

Cinema marketing is evolving in line with audience expectations. Today, cinema marketing strategies can no longer be based solely on trailers, posters and press reviews to promote a film.

Audiences now trust their peers’ opinions and the influencers’ recommendations before going to the cinema. They also expect captivating and participative promotional campaigns that plunge them into the heart of the plot of the films they are going to see in the cinema.

As well as creativity and originality, film promotion benefits from successfully bringing fiction in the viewers’ reality. In this context, Playable Marketing, i.e promotional formats that can be played and interacted with, is proving to be a powerful lever for standing out from the crowd and arousing public interest.

This article looks at the benefits of gamification to promote a film, based on 3 examples of successful interactive campaigns.

SUMMARY

The new challenges of media marketing
Why is Playable Marketing an effective way of promoting a film
Examples of interactive marketing strategies to promote a film

The new challenges of cinema marketing

Cinema marketing has always been subjected to one major challenge: profitability. The distribution budget (i.e all the costs associated with promoting a film) generally represents several hundred thousand euros for French films (or even several million for major American productions). The studios are therefore faced with the ROI challenge of making a profit by controlling their communication costs while attracting enough cinema-goers.

With the arrival of VOD (video on demand via platforms such as Netflix) and the pandemic, cinema-goers have long shunned cinemas. So the cinema and media players are faced with a real challenge: convincing audiences to move by offering them a unique experience that they won’t find via streaming: iMax, 3D, sound quality or in-theatre events.

Marketing formats to promote films must also adapt to new content consumption habits and the battle for attention that advertisers are waging online. Trailers are becoming shorter and more immersive in order to capture and hold users’ attention.

Finally, film studios need to take account of audiences’ search for authenticity and proximity. Social proof, i.e feedback and reviews from the audience itself or from influencers with who they feel closer, are now much more effective in promoting a film than traditional communication channels. Partnerships with influencers enable advertisers to create campaigns that are more interactive with the public and better able to generate and manage anticipation before the film is released in cinemas.

Why is Playable Marketing an effective way of promoting a film?

Playable Marketing is a communication strategy that involves replacing traditional advertising formats with interactive campaigns. The audience is no longer simply a spectator, but can interact with the advertiser via playable ads that incorporate game elements.

Gamified marketing transforms the points of contact between film studios and the public into an experience that is both fun and entertaining, offering numerous advantages for the successful promotion of a film.

Boosting audience engagement

At a time when users are exposed to hundreds of advertisements everyday, Playable Marketing is a way of standing out from the crowd and effectively engage its audience. The interactive aspect makes the promotional experience more memorable and makes an impression on the general public, encouraging them to immerse themselves in the world of the film.

Increase the number of cinema-goers

Playable Marketing is also an effective lever for increasing the conversion rates of promotional campaigns. it encourages action by multiplying interactions with the world of the film tight up to its release in cinemas, and can even offer rewards to spectators to encourage them to buy their tickets (via promotions, free tickets, gifts distributed at the screening, etc.)

Getting to know the audience better

To convince cinema-goers to go to the cinema (or to watch a film/series on a VOD service), advertisers need to understand their expectations and consumption habits. Once again, Playable Marketing helps to meet this challenge for cinema marketing by multiplying the points of contact with the audience. This makes it easier for film studios to collect zero and first party data in order to understand their audience’s preferences in terms of marketing, cinema experience, film genre, etc.

This data can then be reactivated in future campaigns in order to:

boost their performance (better reach, higher room conversion rates)
or retarget viewers with targeted film recommendations.

Examples of interactive marketing strategies to promote a film

Interactive marketing has already proved its worth as a more effective way of promoting a film or content available via streaming. Here are three examples of cinema marketing strategies from which to draw inspiration to engage your audience and attract viewers to your cinema/VOD platform.

1. A Flip & Win to promote the release of Becoming Karl Lagerfeld

To promote the film Becoming Karl Lagerfeld (available on Disney+), the platform offered its audience a marketing game: the Flip & Win. Users were invited (after filling in an entry form) to turn over a fan from among the 3 on offer for a chance to win a prize (a book dedicated to the life of the fashion designer, tickets for the theatrical preview, etc.).

Tip: opt for an Instant Win mechanism, which is ideal for engaging your audience because participants know immediately whether or not they have won.

2. A Jackpot to promote the second season of House of the Dragon

When the second season of House of Dragon was released, the VOD service Sky Shows relied on a Playable Marketing format that was well known to the public: the One-armed Bandit. This customisable mechanism was used to create an immersive experience, as the symbols to be aligned corresponded to the emblems of the great houses emblematic of the series, while collecting optin for its future promotional communications.

Tip: boost the participation rate and the performance of your campaign by offering attractive prizes (tickets for an amusement park, free season tickets, etc.).

3. The voting mechanism to refine our knowledge of the MTV community

The MTV channel uses games to engage its community around the channel’s flagship programs. In addition to the animation, the Playable Marketing voting mechanism enabled MTV to identify user preferences in order to refine its customer knowledge. Participants were invited to vote for the best music videos of the year for a chance to win collector’s goodies.

Tip: take advantage of interactive mechanisms to gather preferences and adapt your program schedule to the audience’s expectations.

Conclusion

Playable Marketing offers numerous advantages for media wishing to promote a film or VOD program. By engaging viewers through an immersive and entertaining experience and facilitating data collection, these formats are ideal for managing audience expectations and boosting the visibility of their productions. Create campaigns by customising one of our playable promotion mechanisms.

In just 30 minutes, we’ll show you how to launch your own high-performance interactive marketing campaign.

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Top 4 ideas for workplace competitions

by sarah Biteau | Nov 7, 2024 | Audience engagement, Engagement, Engagement, Audience engagement

Organize workplace competitions is an excellent way to engage employees and strengthen team cohesion. The fun, interactive aspect of these animations can also be used to serve other strategic HR objectives, such as improving the employer brand, helping employees to develop their skills or retaining talent.

Depending on the expected results, but also on the specifics of the workforce (who may be working face-to-face or remotely), the corporate competition can take different forms.

In this article, you’ll discover 4 ideas of workplace competitions adapted to the professional world.

SUMMARY

1. Use edutainment to help your employees develop their skills
2. Boost employee engagement with creative competitions
3. Strengthen team cohesion through fun activities
4. Loyalize and retain talent by rewarding them through workplace competitions

1. Use edutainment to help your employees develop their skills

Edutainment is the concept of combining learning and play. Introducing gamification mechanics into a professional training course or awareness-raising workshop not only increases participants’ attention, but also encourages the retention of new information.

Competitions can be used to encourage employees to improve their skills. On the one hand, the fun dimension makes professional training more enjoyable for learners. But by introducing a points system or a ranking between participants, companies can also boost their teams’ motivation and push them to excel.

A quiz shared after a training session, for example, can be a very interesting edutainment format for ensuring that employees have assimilated the new knowledge they have been given.

But the competition can also take place directly during the training module via gamified mechanisms such as the 7 Errors Game, for example. As part of a marketing training course, participants might be asked to identify the elements that need to be changed in the visuals of an advertising campaign, for example.

2. Boost employee engagement with creative competitions

Today’s companies are facing many new HR challenges. Younger generations, for example, are known to be more volatile and stay with the same company for shorter periods. There is also growing talk of quiet quitting, i.e. the gradual disengagement of employees who no longer feel part of a collective.

To engage their employees, organizations can again rely on competitions. The key is to offer activities that encourage employees to get involved in strategy and the company’s future. A good idea might be to ask them to come up with a new product or service.

This is what Lidl has done with its voting competition. The aim of this corporate competition was to engage employees by asking them to create the brand’s next pizza, soon to be available in stores. The animation met with great interest from the teams, enabling Lidl to collect 21.6k votes throughout the campaign.

In addition to valuing the creativity and ideas of its employees, Lidl boosted their commitment through this competition by choosing attractive prizes. After a prize draw, participants could win kitchen appliances and accessories.

Similar workplace competitions can be set up to boost employee commitment. Customizers or gamified surveys can also be used to solicit feedback from teams and incorporate it into strategic decisions.

3. Strengthen team cohesion through fun activities

Within a company, organizing contests for groups can also encourage employees to work together. It’s a particularly good way of strengthening team cohesion and developing a spirit of camaraderie among colleagues.

Play is in fact a powerful lever for creating bonds, this can be a way for employees to get to know each other better, or to facilitate collaboration on joint projects. For example, the employer can encourage participants in an onboarding session to take part in a Personality Test. New recruits can break the ice by finding out which category of leader they belong to (via the famous 4-color test).

Sports competitions are also an excellent way of driving employee engagement. Employees can get together in teams and challenge each other in disciplines such as swimming, cycling or archery. A Prognostics challenge during a sporting event can also strengthen cohesion within the workforce by inviting employees to bet as a team.

The challenges of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are also particularly interesting for bonding staff and giving greater meaning to their mission. The competition can be used to raise funds (or items such as second-hand clothing) for needy people or charities. The teams that succeed in raising the funds will be rewarded with prizes that can be :

material (gift, goodies, etc.)
or symbolic (additional days off, promotion on the company website, etc.).

Adictiz took part in a QVT challenge. To find out more about the operation, read the dedicated article: Pimp Your Cup: Adictiz in-house game

4. Loyalize and retain talent by rewarding them through workplace competitions

Workplace competitions can also be used to build talent loyalty. As already mentioned, organizations face a real challenge in retaining their employees. In fact, the departure of an employee entails :

additional recruitment costs,
a vacancy for a shorter or longer period,
loss of expertise,
but also lower productivity.

To retain talent within their teams, employers can organize a competition aimed precisely at rewarding employee loyalty. This type of event can be reserved for senior profiles or, on the contrary, for new recruits whose first months with the company are crucial to their long-term integration.

But the company can also take advantage of special occasions to reward all its employees. DPD, for example, capitalizes on seasonal events such as its 25th anniversary to unite its teams around an internal competition. The organization relied on a simple mechanic (Match 3) to spoil their employees. Participants could win attractive prizes (travel boxes). The result: DPD recorded an average of 41 games per player.

Companies can also reinforce their employer brand by organizing internal competitions such as Instant 100% win. All participants can win prizes, demonstrating the company’s commitment to the well-being and satisfaction of its teams.

Conclusion

Organizing a corporate competition is an excellent way to attract, engage and retain employees. Start by defining the objective you want to achieve, so you can choose the most appropriate event idea. Discover all our customizable interactive mechanics and strengthen your employer brand!

In 30 minutes, we’ll show you how to launch your own high-performance interactive marketing campaign.

Request a demo

In store animation: Galeries Lafayette opts for gamification

by sarah Biteau | Nov 5, 2024 | Animation, Captivate the audience

Even if consumers are increasingly buying online, the fashion sector is particularly concerned by in-store sales. We continue to visit stores to touch fabrics, appreciate cuts and colors and, above all, try on clothes.

On average, going in store to try and pay for their purchase is still preferred by 65% of French people.
However, this preference is declining among young people, forcing brands to revitalise their physical points of sale in addition to their online channels, in particular by organising an in store animation.

Whether to boost brand awareness, increase store and website traffic sales promotion is an essential marketing lever. In fact, it permits to generate more sales and build loyalty through a unique shopping experience. It has an even greater impact when it immerses customers in the brand’s universe, notably with in-store competitions offered via QR codes or interactive terminals.

In this article, we’ll take a look at Galeries Lafayette’s animated marketing strategy, through several examples of campaigns.

SUMMARY

What is an in-store marketing event?
Gamifying in-store sales events: the Galeries Lafayette example

What is an in-store marketing event?

An in-store brand promotion is a commercial operation designed to boost the appeal and profitability of physical points of sale. Its one-off or regular actions can, for example, serve to promote the brand’s image. In fact, it provides greater visibility for a new product launch, it also boosts sales and builds loyalty.

Depending on the expected results, marketing activities can take a variety of forms: product demonstrations, competitions, distribution of discount coupons, treasure hunts in the aisles, and so on.

In all cases, the ultimate goal is to capture the public’s attention, be it the store’s visitors or the brand’s audience. Online, we speak of a drive-to-store strategy. The aim is always the same: to increase in-store traffic.

Gamifying in-store sales events: the Galeries Lafayette example

Despite its well-established reputation, the brand is innovating to enhance the appeal of its stores, and attract and retain customers.

For several years now, the company has relied on marketing gamification (the integration of interactive and playful elements into its marketing activities) to energize its points of sale and online campaigns.

1. Boost store awareness with brand animation

The primary benefit of in-store marketing events is to raise brand awareness. In-store marketing events give the brand greater visibility, help it stand out from the competition and attract consumers to the store.

This includes the creation of POS (point-of-sale) advertising. The brand will therefore develop advertising media installed directly in its shop (in the window, in front of the shop entrance, on the shelves) to promote the point of sale itself, a brand event or a product.

To arouse the curiosity of consumers, Les Galeries created Tesla stands in their stores, giving the partner brand a high profile via an interactive quiz organized during the Weekend de l’homme. By exhibiting cars and offering great prizes (a weekend in a luxury hotel with the loan of a Tesla), the brand was able to attract a large number of participants to the in-store operation.

2. Engaging in-store audiences with interactive kiosks

In-store marketing operations can also be designed to liven up the point-of-sale and engage customers and encourage them to make a purchase (or increase their average shopping basket). Marketing contests, offered via interactive terminals displayed in store allows you to :

generate more interaction with customers,
maintain their interest through fun activities,
strengthen the relationship with the brand, in particular through the possibility of winning an attractive prize.

For Mother’s Day, Galeries Lafayette offered its customers a 100% winning one-armed bandit. Accessible via interactive terminals installed for 3 days in 6 stores in France, the aim of this marketing campaign was to energize sales outlets during this commercial highlight.

The marketing game was also available in mobile format in all stores of France via a QR code displayed on site. This omnichannel strategy enabled the brand to increase the engagement and reach of its campaign. It was able to animate all its stores with particularly attractive prizes (Relais Châteaux stays, bouquets of flowers, gift cards, promotional codes, etc.).

These rewards also enabled the brand to target a second conversion objective. By offering generous value gift cards, this brand strategy boosted sales and collected qualified leads, which could then be reactivated with offers at the end of the game.

3. Build customer loyalty and increase in-store re-purchase rates

Last but not least, in-store marketing events can help to reinforce a sense of belonging to a brand community and build customer loyalty.

Galeries Lafayette has once again relied on gamified animations to reenchant its in-store loyalty program. By organizing a Wheel of Fortune, the company was able to increase the visibility of the Galeries Lafayette Mastercard, through a post-purchase activation.

The Mastercard campaign was based on the Gate Code principle, whereby participants had to enter a code received after an in-store purchase (by email) to access a game of instant wins, and thus gain a chance to win gift vouchers. The campaign met its retention targets with over 2 codes entered per participant (and as many in-store purchases made with the card).

Conclusion

Organizing in-store marketing events is an innovative and creative way to captivate and engage customers. Inspired by the Galeries Lafayette use case, you can boost traffic and sales in your stores. Discover our catalog of gamified sales animations and customize them to suit your objectives and brand universe.

In just 30 minutes, we’ll show you how to launch your own high-performance interactive marketing campaign.

Request a demo