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The Showtime Six Research ReportChuck LubbersThe University of South DakotaTable of ContentsIntroduction…….……………………………………………………..………….………………2Methods…….………………………………………………………………..…………….……..3Results…………………………………………………………………………………………….9Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….18References………………………………………………………………………………………..20Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………….21IntroductionIn this report, we have provided all our research information, and situation analysis regarding our final campaign plan for the Vermillion Movie Theater. We believe that research has a vital role in the success of a business and campaign. We also believe that researching for our client helps secure a vantage point over competitors. Through our research and findings, we acquired relevant knowledge to help our client’s company grow, and increase their market value. We hope that our research report helps our client better understand the market, the customers, its competitors, the needs and trends of the industry, details on present customers and the search for new customers. We collected all our data in a systematic, objective manner and analyzed it thoroughly. Background Information on the Vermillion Theater The ownership of the Vermillion Theaters transferred to the Vermillion Downtown Cultural Association, Inc. at the beginning of July 2015. The Association is committed to keeping the Coyote Twin Theaters open and updating the facility to provide patrons with a state-of-the-art film experience and amenities. Long term goals for the association include reopening the Vermillion Theater as a unique multipurpose cultural facility that will offer a variety of films and events. The Vermillion Theater prides itself on a friendly, enjoyable atmosphere and an imaginative source of family entertainment, with popcorn, snacks, and beverages. The Vermillion Theater gives people a chance to transform film watching into social and educational experiences.Current MarketingWe learned from our client the theater is running multiple promotions and placing advertisements through print and social media. Currently, there is a weekly advertisement in the Equalizer newspaper and some advertisements being done on the radio. The primary concern of the client was whether the advertisements were being effective and if people were paying any attention to the advertisements. We also learned the Vermillion Theater places advertisements at the University of South Dakota, specifically the Muenster University Center. There is a current promotion in place where students can attend a movie for free once a semester. The ads, placed in the Muenster University Center, are directed towards the University students and are designed to inform the students of the promotion, so they can take advantage it. The specific promotion allows for the theater to advertise to this specific audience.Other promotions the theater does are “Beyond School Activities”, “Chick Flick Tuesday”, and Sanford sponsored events for seniors. Beyond School Activities invites students in the Vermillion area to watch a movie at the theater for free once a month. Chick Flick Tuesday takes place the second Tuesday of every month. This promotion is designed to specifically target females of the Vermillion area. Females pay $90 a year to participate in the promotion, and receive complimentary wine/pop during the show time. Sanford Health currently sponsors free showings for senior living in the area. However, according to the client, this promotion has had little popularity. Social media plays a major role in today’s advertising industry, so next we analyzed the engagement of the theater on social media.Social Media AuditFor the social media audit, we went back three months into the theater’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Facebook and Twitter are the only platforms that the Theater currently utilizes. The Vermillion Theater Facebook page has 2,012 likes and an average reach of 700 people per day. Vermillion Theater’s Twitter has a total of 295 tweets, following 81 people, and has 208 followers.We first assessed the number of posts published on Facebook in the last three months as well as how many replies there were to each post. In our assessment, we found that there was a total of 73 posts in the last 15 weeks, this included: original content, shared posts, and photos. This came to an average of about 5 posts a week. There were 85 responses on the 73 posts, out of those 85 responses, 16 of them were from the Theater. Additionally, there were 5 visitor posts within the last 45 days that either asked a specific question or promoted the Theater in some way. Three of those posts didn’t have a response from the Theater. From this, we can conclude the Theater did not respond to every post or there was not a need for a response. On Twitter, the theater had a total of 28 tweets posted in the last three months. These posts included: original tweets, retweets, and replies. This came to an average of barely one tweet every two weeks with zero responses from the theater.The VDCA Facebook and Twitter Data assisted us in examining specific Facebook posts and tweets. The data was provided to us from the client. The data was audited February and January analytics. We compared the data between our social media audit and the analytics provided to us and discovered some very interesting results. One of the first things we realized was that there was a clear relationship between new posts and higher engagement. Every time there was a new post on Facebook, the number of page likes increased as well as the number of people engaged with the theater’s Facebook page. We evaluated what we thought were the three most important aspects of the data: total daily engagement, total daily reach, and demographic data. Through this data, we can then evaluate how and when we have the most interaction and then single out what posts were the most popular. Engagement indicates how many people engaged with a post, it includes any click or story associated with a post. The top three posts in the last 30 days were on: January 25 with 229 engaged users, January 31 with 199 engaged users, and February 17 with 160 engaged users. Once we had those dates singled out, we looked up the corresponding posts. On January 25, they posted an article written by the Volante about the theater. On January 31, the theater created a post promoting their “Free Popcorn Tuesday” deal. On February 17, the theater published three separate posts which would indicate a high engagement rate.Reach is calculated by the number of people who have seen any content associated with the page (daily). So again, we choose what days had the highest reach within the last 30 days so we could understand what posts were most popular and try to understand why. The highest reach in the last 30 days was on January 25 with a reach of 2591 people. From this we can tell that the Volante article created quite a buzz for our client. Another post closest to that was on February 11 with a reach of 2199 people. The theater had two posts on the 11th; one was a repost of an article about Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and the other was a sneak peek video to the new Avengers movie. Those were by far the most popular days as far as reach goes. This data can assist us in creating our campaign strategies now that we know what posts are getting the most interaction. Something else that caught our eye was that in the 28-day total reach analysis, the reach started at about 14,000 on January 25 and decreased to 9,220 by February 21. This is something we took note of to evaluate when we begin to conduct our strategy.Other interesting data discovered included the number of people who clicked on certain content. On January 31, 176 people opened a link to the Vermillion Theater’s website that was posted on the theater’s Facebook. On January 25, 155 people opened the Volante’s article via Facebook. We found that the highest number of likes for the theater’s Facebook page was 4 people on February 9. This was also the same day that the theater posted a trailer for the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie. The trailer post produced 171 views that day as well as 30+ views for the next 5 succeeding days. An odd quality about that day is it also produced the most negative feedbacks within the last 30 days with a total of 3 unfollows for the Facebook page. The report was very helpful because it also provided us with demographic information. The data revealed the number of likes the theater’s Facebook page had by gender and age. It was sorted by: 13-17-year-olds, 18-24-year-olds, 25-34-year-olds, 35-44-year-olds, 45-54-year-olds, 55-64-year-olds, and 65+, then broken down between male or female. Through this, we found our highest number of likes were from 18-24-year-old females with 437 of the 2,012 likes. Coming in next were 25-34-year-old females with 356 and 35-44-year-old females with 287. This demographic data will be extremely beneficial when determining who to target. We then had to evaluate the VDCA Twitter analytics. This certainly wasn’t as complex as the Facebook data because there have only been 8 tweets in the last 30 days. From this information, we were still able to determine a few key elements. The most prevalent tweet was on January 31. The tweet was information regarding their “Free Popcorn Tuesday” promotion. It had a total of 618 impressions and 14 engagements. This means that a total of 618 people saw the tweet and 14 people liked, replied, or retweeted it. In close second was a tweet from February 3, announcing show times for Split and XXX, this had a total of 577 impressions and 7 engagements. After researching the background information of the Vermillion Theater and analyzing social media data, we next began to think about what would be the best way to do primary research and discover what our potential market thought of the theater. Survey-Appendix ATo get a better understanding of the town of Vermillion and who the target demographic should include, it was decided the best solution was to create, distribute, and analyze a survey. We concluded that the strengths of doing a survey were that it would be primary research and would be completed by a broader age range to receive a better understanding of who the target demographic would later include. Another strength was that it helped identify the differences between what encourages and discourages individuals from attending the Vermillion Theater. The survey included two questions involving the purchasing of snacks from theater’s concessions. These questions were included because movie theaters receive their profit from snacks and drink sales. Movie theaters rarely, if ever, receive a profit from showing a film. The data collected from these questions will help formulate a better understanding of how to market to consumers about buying snacks and beverages from the theater. The primary method of distributing the survey was done online. There was a weakness in this method because only individuals inclined to take the survey completed it. This form of distribution also allowed for other individuals outside of the Vermillion area to take the survey. To help offset the possibility of collecting responses from individuals outside of the target area, it was included in the post the survey was “for Vermilion Area Residents Only”. We realized, however, the survey had a few errors after it had been distributed. It only allowed for respondents to choose one answer to questions that asked respondents to choose “all that applied”, for example their favorite genre. It was also realized that respondents were unable to fill out the blank space labeled as “other” on Question 10. These mistakes altered the data, except still allowed for a better understanding of what would encourage consumers to purchase snacks and beverages from the theater and what type of movies they prefered seeing. The survey was also placed at the local restaurant Café Brulé. This location was chosen because Café Brulé is a popular restaurant with a wide age variety in its customers. 40 surveys were placed at the bar. The response rate turned out much lower than expected with only four responses. A disadvantage of this was we were not able to directly hand these out, giving us a low response rate. It ended up not giving us too much information to contribute to our data. An advantage of this strategy was that it had the possibility to reach all different age groups and demographics.The survey included seven multiple choice questions and two open ended questions. The open-ended questions included: “What encourages you to attend the theater?” and “What discourages you from attending the theater?”. For the “what encourages you” response, the top answers were: new releases/movies, good movies, dates, friends, and atmosphere. For “what discourages you from attending”, the top answers were: price, loud people, cleanliness of theater, comfortness of seats, and bad movies. Fifty-one out of 100 respondents mentioned price was the number one reason they did not attend the movie theater. Through our survey, we learned that the average age of our respondents was 26.7. We included a question asking our respondents what their favorite movie genre was. As previously mentioned, the respondents were only allowed to choose one genre due to an error in the survey. Thirty-nine percent of those who took the online survey choose comedy as their favorite genre, with action following with 22 percent. The two lowest genres were animated and children’s movies, both with only two percent. We found most our online respondents were female, with 74 percent being female and 26 percent being male. We also found that most our respondents receive their information about movie theaters from websites. This, however, doesn’t mean that our respondents receive their information from the Vermillion Theater website specifically. These websites can be the website of any movie theater. We also found that a large percentage, 39 percent to be exact, receives their information from social media. This information can be movie times, prices, location, deals. etc. Through this question, we found that 39 percent of the respondents attend a movie theater more than four times a year and 23 percent attended a movie theater at least four times. The number of people who said they don’t attend a movie theater was low, with only three percent. We thought this question was critical to our survey because, as previously mentioned, movie theaters receive most of their income from what they sell in their concessions. Through this question, we learned that 60 percent of our respondents due, in fact, purchase their snacks from the theater’s concessions. Twenty-seven percent of our respondents admitted to sneaking food into the theater instead of purchasing them at the location. After learning that most people purchased their snacks/beverages from the movie theater, we wanted to learn what would make the 13 percent of our respondents who responded “No” to the previous question purchase their snacks/beverages from the theater instead of purchasing them somewhere else or not purchasing anything at all. We learned that 54.55 percent of our respondents would be encouraged to purchase from the theater if the theater had bundled deals. Of our respondents, 27.27 percent said a rewards program, or a punch card, would encourage them.After taking into consideration everything we had learned from our survey our next step was to analyze the population in which the theater is located, Vermillion. Vermillion PopulationVermillion is made up of a population that is mainly Caucasian, low-income, with a high number of college students and graduates. The estimated population in 2015 was 12,013, with over half of the population renting instead of owning a home. The cost of living in Vermillion is below the U.S. average, due to the high number of residents below the poverty line. The five most common segments of Vermillion residents, according to Claritas, are: country squires, campers & camo, golden ponds, small-town collegiate, and bedrock America. Each of these segments have specific attributes and interests to distinguish them apart. Country Squires are between the ages of 35 to 54, live in smaller towns instead of big cities, may have children, own a home, and have a high level of education and income. Campers and Camo are also of the age of 35 to 54, except have less income and a lower education. Like Country Squires, Campers and Camo choose living in smaller towns and owning a home instead of renting. Campers and Camo demographic is more frugal than the Country Squires. Golden Ponds are between the ages of 45 to 64, high school graduates, mostly retired, and without kids. Small-Town Collegiates are between the ages of 25 to 44, often students or recent graduates, with a low income and few to no children. Bedrock America is under the age of 55, low income, high school educated, and mostly without children.After looking at the population in our target area it was important to analyze our competitors and what makes Vermillion Theaters different in comparison to petitive Analysis The biggest current competitor to Vermillion Theaters is online streaming services. Chris Leo Palermino reports a study done by Juniper Research that predicts the number of online streaming/video subscribers to hit 332 million users by 2019 (Digital Trends). This number is up from the 92.1 million in 2014. Palermino further discusses how consumers are switching to buying plug-in options like Chromecast or Firestick, which retail for around $35-$40. This option is cheaper than paying for monthly cable and it offers a more specific package of shows and films customers can choose from right at home. Other competitors of the Vermillion Theaters consist of movie theaters around the area. Nearby competitors are in Yankton, Sioux City, and Sioux Falls. The movie theater located in Yankton, Carmike Cinema, has the strength of being in a mall. However, its communication activities with the public is poor, because it does not have a social media presence, has been considered outdated by customers, and overpriced for how poorly maintained the theater is. Sioux City has two movie theaters, the Promenade Cinema and Carmike Southern Hills 12. The Promenade Cinema is a newer theater, larger than Vermillion’s, and has more screens and movie choices in comparison to the Vermillion Theater. Regarding communication activities, both theaters have a rewards program that is free and allows customers to save money on movie tickets and get certain amounts off on movie theater snacks depending on how many rewards they achieve. Carmike Southern Hills 12 Theater is also located inside of a mall and has student, family, and senior citizen deals. Sioux Falls has three movie theaters, the Cinemark Century Stadium 14, Cinemark, and West Mall 7 Theaters. Cinemark Century Stadium 14 has the latest films, and Cinemark has more screens. West Mall 7 Theater is inside a mall with more screens and lots of leg and arm space. Along with these competitors being more technologically advanced, they also have the advantage of being located in a city, where there is much more to do, as opposed to a small town. Redbox is also major competition in the area. People can get movies at the local Hyvee and Walmart for just a dollar. Walmart also offers $5 movie bins that contain a huge selection of movies and genres. In addition to nearby competitors and streaming services, the theater is also affected by national trends movie theaters everywhere are following. We need to consider the theater’s social media presence, reviews on the internet, a substantial rewards program and/or other deals that will make customers want to come to a theater rather than snuggling up under a blanket in the comfort of their own home.National TrendsThe Motion Picture Association of America’s 2015 Theatrical Market Statistics detail U.S./Canadian and global trends of moviegoers and the movie industry. The box office in 2015 was up 8% from 2014 at $11.1 billion, with the 3D box office making up 15% of the total box office. 1.32 billion tickets were sold, a 4% increase from 2014. Over two-thirds of the total U.S./ Canada population over the age of 2 went to a movie at least once in 2015. Average moviegoers bought 5.6 tickets yearly. The MPAA stated “Frequent moviegoers who go to the cinema once a month or more continue to drive admissions, accounting for 49% of all tickets sold in the U.S./Canada but only 10% of the total population. The number of tickets purchased by all moviegoer groups increased in 2015, and the share of tickets purchased by occasional moviegoers increased by two percentage points to 49%” (2015). The average ticket price in 2015 was $8.43, a 3% increase from 2014. The average price for a family of four was $33.72, making it more affordable than sporting events and theme parks for family entertainment. The demographics of moviegoers varies. The average is slightly skewed towards women. Caucasians make up most moviegoers, but “Hispanics are more likely than any other ethnic group to purchase movie tickets (23%) relative to their share of the population (17%)” (MPAA 2015). While all ages attend movies, the largest segment of moviegoers are 25-39 year olds with the next largest segment being 12-17 year olds (MPAA 2015). Nationally to stay ahead of the competition, theaters are adding comfier and reclined seating, more food choices, and multiple screens. Matt Pressburg discusses how the future of film is about bigger screens and bigger data (). Pressburg uses the example of the Regal: LA live Cinemax in which it is using three screens to create a “U-shape” or “cock-pit” like view of the screens. This allows for enhanced viewing of the film and the audience feels as if they are in the movie itself. Furthermore, Pressburg discusses how data is the future of film experience and analyzing demographics. When customers enter the lobby, they will view short clips and trailers of films that will be connected to synchronized lights and sound. This enhances experience from the moment customers walk in the theater. To get a better understanding of the demographics, camera based surveillance system will be installed to analyze attendants. This data analyzed will be used for “audience demographics for target audience” (Pressburg, IBT). A survey of 1,000 moviegoers done by RBC showed attendants “like theaters that upgrade their seating and concessions, and offer alternative content on slow nights” (Lieberman, 2016). When asked what their favorite theater chain was, 44% of respondents did not have a preferable one. One analyst analyzed the results and focused on the 57% of respondents who only go to three or fewer movies a year. From this 57%, about 44% stated they had attendant a theater with recliner seats. Furthermore, the respondents stated the upgrade aspects of the theaters made them inclined to return. Respondents said they would be willing to pay $1+ extra for premium seating. The article discusses how theaters can promote business and boost attending “swapping out Hollywood films on slow nights in favor of alternative content- including live events, classic films, multi-cultural content, and TV fare” (Lieberman). ConclusionsDuring our research report we analyzed the background of the theater, current marketing/advertising efforts, social media and website presence, national trends, and competition analysis. We conducted a survey to collect more data on the City of Vermillion and to research further into how to advertise and market efficiently to the theater audience. This information helped us determine who our target market will be. On Facebook, we found our highest number of likes were from 18-24-year-old females with 437 of the 2,012 likes. Next were 25-34-year-old females with 356 and 35-44-year-old females with 287. This demographic data shows us who to target market is for the Vermillion Theaters. From our survey, the average age of our respondents was 26.7. This age would be our target market. We found that online media is the best way to market Vermillion Theatres. Most our respondents receive their information about movie theaters from websites, as well as through social media. This information includes movie times, prices, location, deats. ect. Along with this, 54.55 percent of our respondents would be encouraged to purchase from the theater if the theater had bundled deals and 27.27 percent said a rewards program, or a punch card, would encourage them as well. This is a great way to improve the campaign strategy and increase sales through concessions.The Vermillion Theatres has a lot to offer to the community of Vermillion. The Association is committed to keeping the Coyote Twin Theaters open and updating the facility to provide patrons with a state-of-the-art film experience and amenities. In the future, their goals are to reopen the Vermillion Theater as a unique multipurpose cultural facility that will offer a variety of films and events. The Vermillion Theater prides itself on a friendly, enjoyable atmosphere and an imaginative source of family entertainment, with popcorn, snacks, and beverages. The Vermillion Theater gives people a chance to transform film watching into social and educational experiences. But the competition in the area has other strengths. The movie theater located in Yankton, Carmike Cinema, has the strength of being in a mall. The Promenade Cinema in Sioux city is a newer theater, larger than Vermillion’s, and has more screens and movie choices in comparison to the Vermillion Theater. Carmike Southern Hills 12 Theater is also located inside of a mall and has student, family, and senior citizen deals. Sioux Falls has three movie theaters, the Cinemark Century Stadium 14, Cinemark, and West Mall 7 Theaters. Cinemark Century Stadium 14 has the latest films, and Cinemark has more screens. West Mall 7 Theater is inside a mall with more screens and lots of leg and arm space. They also have the advantage of being in a city, where there is much more to do, as opposed to the small town, Vermillion. Along with the physical strengths, come the competitor’s communications activities. All are more technologically advanced than Vermillion theatres. They do not have a strong social media presence, and has been considered outdated by customers. Both theaters have a rewards program that is free and allows customers to save money on movie tickets and get cheaper movie theater snacks depending on how many rewards they achieve. We need to consider reviews on the internet, a substantial rewards program, and/or other deals that will make customers want to come to a theater rather than staying in the comfort of their own home. From this research, we can move forward into the next steps of campaign process.ReferencesCarmike Cinemas, (2017). Southern Hills 12. Retrieved February 23, 2017 from . (2017). 57069 Zip Code (Vermillion, SD) Detailed Profile. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from , LLC. (2017). MyBestSegments. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from F. (2017). What is Marketing Communication Strategy? Retrieved February 22, 2017, from strategy-3442.htmlLieberman, D. (2015, April 16). Movie Theaters To See Big Payoffs From Upgrades And Trends – Analyst. Retrieved February 23, 2017, from Street Theatres, (2017). Promenade Sioux City. Retrieved February 23, 2017 from , C. L. (2015, May 19). A third of a billion people will be using streaming video platforms by 2019. Retrieved February 20, 2017, from , M. (2016, April 04). The Movie Theater Of The Future Is All About Big Screens And Big Data. Retrieved February 23, 2017, from , C. J., (2015). Theatrical Market Statistics. Retreived February 23, 2017, from A- Survey InstrumentHave you ever heard of Vermillion Theaters? ___YES ____NOHave you ever been to the Vermillion Theater?___YES ____NOIf yes, in the last year how many movies have you attended at the Vermillion Theaters? ____0 ____1 ____2____3____4____5+If no, why have you not attended the Vermillion Theaters? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________What would make you attend a movie at the Vermillion Theaters?__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Do you know what a non-profit is?______YES _____NO Do you know what the Vermillion Downtown Cultural Association, Inc. is?_______YES ________ NOAre you aware that Vermillion Theater is part of non-profit Vermillion Downtown Cultural Association? ______YES _______NO 9) When attending a movie, do you purchase items from the concessions?_____Yes_____ No_____Let’s be honest I sneak snacks in the theater. 10) When attending a movie, do you purchase items from the concessions? ___Bundled Deals ___ Rewards Program (Punch Card) ___ OtherAppendix B- Motion Picture Association of America ................
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