SlideShare a Scribd company logo
1 of 62
Marketing 472 – Advanced IMC
2016 Spring Semester SDSU
GoFobo – Professor Peter
By:
Zach Rojina
Erika Gutierrez
Jefferson Cortez
Wesley Billingsly
May 2nd, 2016
Table of Contents
Executive Summary………………………………………………………………….……....……3
GoFobo IMC Plan 1
Industry Review………………………………………………………………………………...…4
Company Review……………………………………………….………….………………….…..5
a. Company Snapshot………………………………………………………………..………5
b. Target Markets…………………………………………………………………………….6
c. Current Marketing Mix……………………………………………………………………6
Product Review …………..…………………………………………….…………....……...…….7
a. Unique Selling Proposition……………………………….………………......……..…….8
b. SWOT….……………………………………………………………………..……..…….8
Buyer Analysis………………………………………………………………………...……….….8
Competitive Review…………………………………………………………….…………....……9
a. Direct Competitors…………………………………….…………………………………..9
b. Indirect Competitors………………………………………………………………....……9
Segmentation……………………………………………………………………………………..12
Targeting…………………………………...…………………………………………………….12
a. Target Profile #1: Young Adults…………………...…………………………………….12
b. Target Profile #2:
Families………………………………………………...…………..…13
c. Target Profile #3: Movie
Enthusiasts…………………………...……………………..…14
Positioning………………………………………………………………………………….........15
Communications Objectives and Budget Request……………………………...……………..…16
a. Communication Objectives………………………………………………………………16
b. Budget Request…………………………………………………………………………..18
GoFobo IMC Plan 2
Creative Strategy Statement……………………………………………..……………………….20
IMC Mix………………………………………………………...……………………………….21
a. User-Generated Content Forums………………………………………...………………21
b. Social Media……………………………………………………………………………..24
c. Loyalty Program………………………………………………………………………....30
d. Contests/Sweepstakes……………………………………………………………………32
e. SEO/SEM…………………………………………………………………………….......34
f. Other Current Media Strategies……………………………………………………….…36
Specific Media Objectives/Mix………………………………………………………………….37
Evaluation Program……………………………………………………………………………...40
a. User-Generated Content Forum Metrics…………………………………………....……40
b. Social Media Metrics………………………………………………………………...…..40
c. Loyalty Program Metrics………………………………………………………….……..40
d. Contests/Sweepstakes Metrics……………………………………………………….…..41
e. SEO/SEM Metrics……………………………………………………………………….41
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Our IMC plan for GoFobo has been specifically constructed to achieve the company’s
desired goals as well as goals we have set based on our own research. These goals primarily
GoFobo IMC Plan 3
revolve around gaining new users, retaining users, and increasing time spent on the site by its
customers. It has been designed to create and provide offers and services that do not devalue the
company in any way. Among other information you will be able to find an extensive Industry
Analysis as well as a Situation Analysis on GoFobo. This campaign will last the length of one
year, beginning on June 2016 through June 2017, respectively. This plan will require an overall
budget of $60,000 for a calendar year. As our slogan implies, we will use this plan to show the
world that ‘You can’t go without GoFobo’ creating a sense of exclusivity amongst users.
Our IMC plan consists of focusing on three primary targeted audiences. The first of these,
and our primary audience of focus, we have come to call movie enthusiasts. The second target
market we have grouped as young adults, and the third we have classified as families. The
reasoning for our division of the target audience into these segments, and our priority listing
among them will be described in detail.
We will conclude our IMC plan by conducting an evaluation of our IMC mix at the end
of the program’s year. The primary method for evaluating these IMC tools will be to obtain and
analyze data provided by GoFobo’s analytical software. In turn, measuring effectiveness will
determine whether the media strategies suggested should be kept or discarded. As needed, we
can obtain necessary evaluation metrics and consumer feedback through qualitative surveys and
forum success rates.
Industry Review
The film industry is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, player in the broader
entertainment sector; it is considered a cornerstone of the industry. It is expected, that the sector
as a whole generated 564 billion U.S. dollars in revenue by the end of 2015. Forecasts predict
that the entertainment industry will grow to over 679 billion US dollars in value over the next
GoFobo IMC Plan 4
four years, proving its worth in domestic markets and as a major U.S. export (Theatrical Market
Statistics, 2015). Although GoFobo is in the film industry they land in a relatively new
subcategory within the film industry. The concept of making advanced viewings of featured
films available to the general public to view before their official release date is still rather new.
We discovered from our research, and using multiple databases in the campus library, that this is
in fact a new subcategory within the movie industry as a whole. Due to this fact, portions of this
paper use insights and facts pertaining to the film industry in general. We feel that since the
timing of the movie viewings is the primary characteristic of this subcategory, that these insights
and facts will still provide us with the most accurate information to analyze GoFobo.
While this concept is new, and offers GoFobo potential for many lucrative opportunities,
it does have one drawback. The first being the possibility that film studios, or filmmakers in
general, can completely opt out of offering advanced screenings before an official release date.
While this is a very real possibility, our group feels that there are enough opportunities for
growth to outweigh these disadvantages.
Currently, the service of offering advanced screenings is typically outsourced entirely to
an advertising or public relations agency, or it is put together by an in-house department within a
film studio. We have identified Sony Pictures and The Walt Disney Studios as the two largest
film studios with an in-house department for coordinating their own advanced screening
offerings. Fandango was the only other competitor we were able to identify as a third party
provider of advanced screenings. However, this is not the primary focus of Fandango’s service,
serving as a small portion of their business model. We have identified various reasons why both
the direct and indirect competitors GoFobo currently faces provide no real threat to the growth
and success of GoFobo.
GoFobo IMC Plan 5
Company Review
Company Snapshot
The primary service GoFobo provides is the setting up and facilitating of advanced movie
screening events as well as offering promotions and sweepstakes. GoFobo is a unique company
in the sense that they operate in both a business to business channel, as well as a business to
consumer channel.
In the business to business channel, GoFobo is a cloud-based solution that allows
businesses to manage promotional screening campaigns from start to finish, utilizing a simple
and intuitive interface, as well as providing access to millions of moviegoers. GoFobo consults
with various film studios to partner up in offering advanced screenings of their films. The benefit
the film studios receive from this partnership is really multifaceted. GoFobo merged with
TicktBox in 2013 to form the largest third party advanced movie screening event coordinator in
the United States. Through this merger, GoFobo gained access to several technology patents in
TicktBox’s secure permissions based client backend system section of its interface. This system
allows GoFobo’s clients, the film studios, access to real time data collected from the advanced
screening ticket retrieval process. The advanced screening ticket retrieval process eventually
takes you to a customer landing page, where film studios have the option to include branded
elements, run sweepstakes instantly, and provide social media integration. In addition to the
landing page, GoFobo coordinates the entire ticket creation process, where it offers its clients co-
branded tickets, QR code verification, a prominent promotional partner logo, and has multiple
different types of tickets--VIP, press. GoFobo has also aligned itself with the consumer trend of
increasing smartphone usage, and has made its landing page accessible via a mobile device in
addition to making the ticket scannable on any mobile device.
GoFobo IMC Plan 6
In the business to consumer channel, GoFobo offers a branded webpage where users can
create an account and gain access to the over 80,000 advanced movie screenings that GoFobo
has coordinated. The pieces of information you need to provide in order to make a GoFobo
account are your name and email address, a password, your birthdate, gender and zip code. Once
you have made an account on GoFobo, you can search for advanced screenings by location when
you enter your zip code, or simply browse the movies they have listed on their “FIND
SCREENINGS” page. When you have found the screening you would like to see, you simply
click the “Get Passes” option, and are provided with a code you enter on GoFobo’s website. You
will then be directed to a printable page of your ticket, as well as have a copy emailed to you.
Once you have your ticket printed or accessible on your smartphone, you are ready to attend an
advanced screening set up by GoFobo.
Target Markets
GoFobo currently has a database that is able to reach as much as 4 million current users.
Among those users the ages vary from 13 years of age to 65+ years of age.
Current Marketing Mix
Social Media: GoFobo currently has a strong social media standing with over 115,000
likes on their Facebook page, around 45,000 followers on Twitter, and more than 8,000 followers
on Instagram. They use their Social Media for different reasons whether it is to create awareness,
interest amongst users or to reach them through advertisements.
Blogs: GoFobo currently writes blogs on their site, which in turn helps create more traffic
to their site.
GoFobo IMC Plan 7
Sweepstakes: GoFobo currently partners and sponsors different events depending on the
city that the users are in. In San Diego, for example, they have partnered with HBO and offer
their users a free three month subscription.
Surveys: GoFobo currently sends surveys to their users as a way to identify Customer
Satisfaction or simply learning more about their users.
Monthly Newsletter: GoFobo currently sends their users a monthly newsletter that
includes three articles about current events.
Product Review
The primary service GoFobo provides is the setting up and facilitating of advanced movie
screening events as well as offering promotions and sweepstakes. GoFobo positions themselves
as a provider of premium services within the movie industry. They are attempting to remain
differentiated from common informational databases for films such as IMDB.com or
MoviePilot.com. The reason for this positioning is an attempt to not devalue the brand identity
that GoFobo has created. Based on GoFobo’s current position in the service category, we believe
they will be able to leverage their standing to become the leader in offering advanced screenings.
Unique Selling Proposition
The unique selling proposition GoFobo offers to its end users is that, thanks to its
relationship with film studios, the advanced screening ticket is available to its users free of
charge.
SWOT
The service category that GoFobo currently operates in is new, therefore we wanted to
complete an internal analysis to figure out what to attribute their success to. In conducting this
analysis, one of the main strengths of their service that we identified is their expansive portfolio
GoFobo IMC Plan 8
of services they offer for film studios. These service offerings allow them to maintain valuable
relationships with big name film studios, while still positioning themselves at a premium price
point. Piggybacking off of the aforementioned strength, we also identified their ability to provide
end users with free advanced screening passes to films released by these film studios as a final
important strength. The simplicity of their current business model for the end user has left
GoFobo with the opportunity to offer additional services and or features within the portfolio they
already offer.
Conversely, one of GoFobo’s primary weaknesses we were able to identify in
conducting an internal analysis includes their struggle to retain customers. Similarly, users
visiting the site exclusively to retrieve tickets and then only returning periodically is another
weakness for GoFobo. Additionally, GoFobo struggles with a lack of valuable content on their
website.
Buyer Analysis
While GoFobo is already established among film studios for their highly valuable data
collection technology, they are still trying to better appeal to the end user who obtains free
screening passes. The related purchase process, which has no associated cost for GoFobo users,
can be characterized as very low-involvement for the user. As mentioned earlier, the process
only involves two steps. The first step is to login to your account, followed by step two, which is
to enter the provided code after you find an available screening. Because this is such a low-
involvement process, GoFobo feels that there is a void to be filled in its current line of services
offered. Our team has addressed this issue head on, and come up with several solutions contained
in the IMC Mix portion of this report.
Competitive Review
GoFobo IMC Plan 9
Direct Competitors
GoFobo competes in an industry subcategory that still has yet to reach its full growth
potential. The immaturity of this subcategory has left GoFobo with relatively few competitors in
comparison with other companies in the industry of offering services. GoFobo’s only direct
competitors that we were able to identify are various advertising and public relations agencies.
There is no clear lead agency in terms of number of relationships with studios to consistently
promote and coordinate advanced screening events. While advertising and public relations
agencies do pose a threat to GoFobo, this is a very weak threat. In analyzing these agencies’
breadth and depth of service, they cannot offer comparable promotional and coordinating
capabilities. As stated in the company review, these industry leading promotional capabilities
include providing promotional materials such as branded tickets, campaign oversight, webpage
development and social media integration. However, in a much broader sense GoFobo has other
indirect competitors which we will elaborate on.
Indirect Competitors
GoFobo’s next closest indirect competitor in the market of offering advanced screening
events is Fandango. Fandango is primarily an e-commerce site who offers a wide variety of
services related to the movie industry. One of the many services Fandango offers its users
includes giving out free tickets to advanced screenings to “FandangoVIP” members. Similar to
the ticket retrieval process for GoFobo, all that a user needs to provide in order to become a
“FandangoVIP” member is an email. Although advanced screenings are a component of
Fandango’s service portfolio, it is not the primary focus of their business model. The main
source of Fandango’s competitive advantage stems from their broad portfolio of partnerships
with movie theatre company's/owners. Because there is a fundamental difference between the
GoFobo IMC Plan 10
source of competitive advantage for GoFobo--their relationships with film studios--and
Fandango’s aforementioned source of competitive advantage, they do not pose a clear barrier to
growth potential for GoFobo.
GoFobo’s next closest indirect competitor we have identified are film studios that have
chosen not to entirely outsource the service of offering advanced movie screening events. Two of
the largest, and most prominent film studios that have chosen to vertically integrate themselves
into offering this service are Sony Pictures Studios and The Walt Disney Studios. The difference
between the two being: while Sony Pictures does offer advanced screening events for some of its
films, they are actually a customer of GoFobo. They have some sort of selection process for
which films they will use for their in-house department to set up advanced screenings, and which
films they will license to GoFobo. The Walt Disney Studios is not affiliated with GoFobo
whatsoever.
Sony Pictures Studios coordinates advanced screening events for various films released
by its various subdivisions via a company website called sonyscreenings.com. Some of the
advanced screening events that have already been featured through the website include 22 Jump
Street, Robocop, and The Monuments Men. The Walt Disney Studios offers advanced screening
events via its company website SeeItFirst.net. Some of the screening events to be featured on
their company website include films such as Million Dollar Arm, Need for Speed, and Delivery
Man. While these two studios have partially vertically integrated themselves, their advanced
screening options are limited to the films which they produce themselves. Therefore GoFobo has
an advantage over these studios in terms of breadth of films they are able to provide screening
events for. In addition to this limitation, film studios don’t have a comparable ability to
GoFobo IMC Plan 11
seamlessly integrate all of the promotional materials and platforms and collect data from the
users who retrieve screening passes.
The last indirect competitor worth mentioning is IMDb.com, and the services offered to
its premium IMDbPro members. Regardless of if you are an IMDbPro member, the primary
services available to you on the IMDb.com do not conflict with those offered by GoFobo.
IMDb.com is primarily used as a source of finding information pertaining to films that have
already been released to the general public. These services include lists of movies and showtimes
available at specific movie theatre locations, information and news about celebrities & film
festivals, as well as ratings for a broad range of films. Additionally, some of the resources
available to IMDbPro members are a place to create a profile containing your resume & previous
work, access to current industry openings, as well as contact information for prominent figures in
the film industry. The additional services offered to IMDbPro members are geared more towards
those already employed or searching for employment in the film industry, than those looking to
simply enjoy film and entertainment. Due to this fact, we do not view IMDb.com as a large
threat to the success and growth of GoFobo.
Segmentation
The target audience we will be attempting to reach consists of three different market
segments. These three different market segments are categorized by demographics,
psychographics, and behavioral tendencies.
Targeting
Target Market #1: Young Adults
Our first target market, which primarily consists of college students and Millennials who
are just entering the workforce, are the young adults; made up of both males and females
GoFobo IMC Plan 12
between the ages of 18-33. (Pew Research Center, 2015) According to data by the Pew Research
Center on Millennials, this target demographic identified as being very tech savvy and active on
Social Media. (Pew Research Center, 2010, p. 25) They were the ones out of every other
generational cohort most likely to create a social networking profile, use wireless internet away
from home, and post videos of themselves online. (Pew Research Center, 2010, p. 25). Further
research conducted by Nielsen also suggests that the audience in this category have a particular
preference for films in the Young Adult Fiction Adaptation category which would include
popular YA novels adapted to film franchises such as the Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games
trilogy, and the Twilight movies. (Nielsen Research, 2014) The Nielsen Research (2014) also
mentioned how films in the Action Adventure, Fantasy, and Thriller genres were most popular
just under the YA fiction adaptation genre (use Figure 1).
Figure 1
Target Market #2: Families
GoFobo IMC Plan 13
Our next target market consists of families whose parents’ ages range between 26-35
years old, and whose children are within the ages of 6-11 years old. (Nielsen Research, 2013)
According to the Nielsen (2013) article on family audiences, on average, children went to go
watch about six films in theaters in 2013 and “Of the movies children see at the theater, they go
to at least half of those movies with both parents and with one of the parents on three out of ten
occasions.” The Nielsen (2013) article also suggests that parents tend to be very conscious about
the films they take their children to see at the theaters and that a lot is taken into consideration
when choosing a film to go watch. This includes numerous factors such as MPAA Rating, What
the reviewers say, and the MPAA description. The family audience in this category have a strong
penchant for films within the PG, PG-13, and Animated Genres; further research indicates that
“PG-13 films comprised 15 of the top 25 films in release during 2013” and that 92% of children
favored Animated films the most out of every other demographic (Nielsen Research, 2013)
(Gaile, 2015) (use Figures 2 & 3).
Figure 2 Figure 3
GoFobo IMC Plan 14
Target Market #3: Movie Enthusiasts
Our last target market is for the movie enthusiast; this person loves everything and
anything about movies and they don’t necessarily fit into a specific age group which makes them
our broadest and biggest category of the three. The movie enthusiasts are also GoFobo’s current
target market; they happen to be the most active on mobile, social media, and technology in
general; with users using these platforms as a means to follow up on the releases of all their
favorite and most anticipated films. (Nielsen Research, 2013) The Nielsen Research (2013) also
mentioned how mobile moviegoers “spend more, consume more content and are more actively
engaged in the moviegoing process.” and how “Smartphone and tablet owners are heavier
moviegoers than average, attending 9 percent and 20 percent more movies overall.” While we
weren’t able to find any particular data to profile a specific preference of film for the movie
enthusiasts, we made a general assumption that these were the people who constantly go back to
the theaters to watch the sequels to all their favorite franchises, to see their favorite
actors/actresses, to see that next big feature from their favorite directors, or just to go because
they watch all kinds of movies. As a result, it would make much more sense to focus on this
particular demographic as they consume the most content in the film industry, which would in
turn, make them the most profitable to target by GoFobo (use Figures 4 & 5).
Figure 4 Figure 5
GoFobo IMC Plan 15
Positioning
GoFobo positions themselves as a premium service who are attempting to remain
differentiated from common informational database for movies such as IMDB.com and
MoviePilot.com. The reason behind their current position is to not devalue the brand image and
reputation that GoFobo has created. GoFobo’s differentiation strategy will also focus on their
Unique Selling Proposition, which is “Providing free advanced screening tickets for featured
films.” GoFobo is different from their competitors because they offer a service that no other
company is able to offer, they also have relationships with big name film studios granting them
exclusive access to upcoming films. GoFobo’s target markets will be attracted mainly by their
differentiation strategy which makes them an alternative to movie theaters and much cheaper as
well.
Communications Objectives & Budget Request
GoFobo IMC Plan 16
The objectives for our campaign will be based as they relate to brand awareness, interest,
desire, and action where we will be using the AIDA model (use Figure 6).
Communications Objectives
Our objectives are as follows:
1. Increase awareness level in general public: All Social Media (Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Snapchat geofilter) (40%)
2. Increase interest in the service: Loyalty Program, SEO/SEM, Social Media (30%)
3. Increase desire among users: Contests/Sweepstakes (20%)
4. Increase action (engagement) with GoFobo: User Content Forums, Snapchat Geofilter
Loyalty Program (10%)
In order to accomplish our first objective of creating awareness we will be utilizing
GoFobo’s current social media accounts; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. GoFobo is currently
well established in their social media platforms, and leveraging that will just help them grow
more, we plan on increasing awareness by 40%. Creating awareness is an essential part of
GoFobo IMC Plan 17
growing business for GoFobo and is also used as a way to communicate with their current users
as well as prospective users. We decided to increase awareness by 40% because it keeps GoFobo
“top of mind” when users are thinking of searching for free advanced screening passes. We also
included Snapchat as a medium to increase awareness, users who are signed up on the social
media platform will be able to swipe through the geofilters and find our Gofobo geofilter in
designated areas (use Figure 7).
Figure 7
GoFobo IMC Plan 18
For our second objective we plan on increasing interest by 30%, the reason being because
our Loyalty Program will be a vital part for GoFobo users to come back to our sites, we will be
providing content exclusively available for GoFobo users. We also plan on increasing interest by
continuing their SEO/SEM program. Social Media will also be used to tap into GoFobo user’s
interest because social media sites are used as a gateway for users interested in liking our
Facebook page as well as following our Twitter page or Instagram page.
For our third objective we plan on increasing desire by 20% using Contests/Sweepstakes.
By conducting “enter to win” contests and sweepstakes we are able to create user desire. Our
third and last objective is one of the most important ones in our AIDA model. We plan on
increasing action within our users by 10% using our user-generated content forum. Our user
generated content forum will be a very important part of increasing action because it is a medium
that will allow GoFobo users to share ideas, comments, and share speculation about the movie
before the screening occurs.
Budget Request
Our budget consists of $5,000 monthly which turns out to be $60,000 annually. The
budgeting method that we plan to employ is the objective-and-task method. This means we will
divide the budget according to what is required in order to meet our communications objectives.
This method entails defining specific promotional objectives, the tasks needed to achieve these
objectives and estimating the costs of performing these tasks. We will be allocating our $60,000
budget according to two communication tools which are Consumer-Oriented Sales Promotion
and Digital and Social Media.
The objective for utilizing this tool is to create customer retention and keep GoFobo users
interested and engaged in the website. I will begin with our first communication tool: Consumer-
GoFobo IMC Plan 19
Oriented Sales Promotion where we will be allocating 44.5% of our $60,000 budget towards
these tools. The two activities that we decided to use as our Consumer-Oriented Sales Promotion
will be the Loyalty Program and Contests/Sweepstakes.
For our second tool, Digital and Social Media, we decided to utilize three different
activities to accomplish our goals. These include two separate and distinct User-Generated
Content Forums, Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat), as well as SEO/SEM.
The User-Generated Content Forums are the focal point of our overall plan, and therefore require
the largest portion of our budget bringing the amount to 25% of our total budget (use Figure 8).
Figure 8
GoFobo IMC Plan 20
COPY PLATFORM
Client: GoFobo
Product/Service: Providing free advanced screening tickets to their users.
Slogan: “You, can’t go without GoFobo” or “Become an A-lister with GoFobo”
Objectives: To drive engagement to retain users beyond the RSVP process and screening
experience.
Message Strategy
Key Benefits: Use of this service will allow users to obtain free advanced screening movie
tickets to highly anticipated films and once registered as a user they will have an opportunity to
be a part of GoFobo’s exclusive user-generated content forum.
Claims and Promises: GoFobo users will be the first to see highly anticipated films.
Reassurance: By being a registered GoFobo user, users will have exclusive access to an online
community that will give them the ability to connect and communicate with fellow movie
enthusiasts.
GoFobo IMC Plan 21
Message Appeals
Tone: exclusivity, convenience, relaxation, pleasure, happiness
Rationale for Creative Recommendations: The use of Social Media platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will be used as a tool to stay ‘top of mind’ amongst users. The
use of our loyalty rewards program and SEO/SEM will be used to increase interest. We plan on
utilizing Contests/Sweepstakes as a medium to increase desire. Finally we will be utilizing the
user generated content forum and our loyalty rewards program as a tool to increase action.
Executions: GoFobo’s Marketing Team will be executing the recommendations we have listed
above.
Integrated Marketing Communications Mix
User-Generated Content Forum
As noted earlier, one of the main objectives of our IMC plan is to increase the average
amount of time users spend on the site as well as to increase their weekly visits. One of the
primary tools that we think would help address this issue would be to create a platform for user
generated content forums. We will be creating two different types of forums, one would be
geared toward movie conversations before the screening occurs, and the other would be to
facilitate conversations and reactions after users have attended the screening. The advanced
screening forums will be exclusively accessible to users who were provided with a code to obtain
a ticket to an advanced screening event. In contrast, the post screening forums will be accessible
to the general public.
The goal of these forums is two-fold. We want to be sure to provide users with a space to
voice their thoughts, speculations, and opinions about the upcoming movie or new movies in
their favorite franchises. We also see the forums as a useful tool to help spike audience retention
and create a sense of community among movie enthusiasts who visit GoFobo most frequently.
GoFobo IMC Plan 22
Our secondary research revealed to us that current GoFobo users already utilize Facebook
as a medium to voice their opinions about the movie screenings they have recently watched (use
Figure 9).
Figure 9
GoFobo IMC Plan 23
Similarly, in order to transfer those users to express those thoughts and opinions onto
GoFobo’s website, we will set up a separate landing page within the site that would provide
ratings and feedback similar to what Rotten Tomatoes does. GoFobo currently has an option for
film studios to send users a survey shortly after watching the film with a few basic questions.
We would like to expand on this survey, and providing users with a link to the forum landing
page that will be a part of GoFobo’s current site, further increasing their traffic.
Due to the fact that users already post to Facebook with reviews and reactions to
screening events, it will be the primary social media channel we use to promote our user
generated content forum. Several ideas that we have come up for campaign themes are “Become
GoFobo IMC Plan 24
an A-lister with GoFobo” or “Be the first to know with GoFobo”. This campaign will give our
users a more rich experience as well as a sense of exclusivity to forums only they can access.
Relating to the post screening forum, we decided to create a three-point rating system for
users to rate the movie from. The names of the three different types of ratings that we will
provide users with the option of giving their screening are described below. The top rated movies
with 75% or higher will receive a “Majestic Double Chunk Ice Cream” rating, this is the ultimate
score that movies want to receive from their critics, this means the movie was great and that they
would recommend it to family and friends. The next rating is for movies that received a rating of
60% or higher and these are called the “Delightful Crunch”, meaning they were good but not
great. The third and final rating a movie is able to receive is the one that no film wants and this
is for movies rated 59% or lower also known as the “Lousy Crumbles” (use Figure 10).
Figure 10
GoFobo IMC Plan 25
Another goal of this forum is to encourage audience engagement and participation by
allowing the users themselves to help generate and create site content in a manner in which
GoFobo can save time, money, and resources to better allocate their budget. These forums will
be our most effective method for driving more website engagement, so there will be a major
emphasis placed on them. This tool will take up 25% of our total budget, or $15,000.
Social Media
GoFobo currently has a relatively strong social media presence with Facebook having
over 115,000 page likes, Twitter with more than 45,000 followers, and Instagram with more than
8,000 followers. We would like to leverage GoFobo’s social media pages to further enhance the
communication tools they already have in place in order to bring more awareness. We want to
utilize Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as complementary tools to advertise the launch of the
communication tools within our IMC mix--loyalty program, contests/sweepstakes, and user
GoFobo IMC Plan 26
generated content forums. The plan for this communication tool is to increase brand engagement,
brand awareness and participation to push users through the AIDA funnel, and ultimately come
back to GoFobo after the ticket retrieval process.
Utilizing social media will also provide us another avenue to gather specific information
to gage the success of our plan. These metrics include numbers such as the number of likes,
number of followers, the amount of coverage, and the amount of engagement with the audience.
This information will also include demographics in order to gain more detailed insight into the
types of consumers we’re reaching. Using Primary Research of a survey that was provided to us
by Sean from TicktBox we were able to determine that out of 1,132 respondents, 57% prefer to
use Facebook compared to all other social media channels (use Figure 11). Other piece of useful
information contained in the survey was that 52% of the total respondents accessed GoFobo
using a Desktop and 48% are accessing the site through their mobile device (use Figure 11).
Figure 11 (Survey & Results)
GoFobo IMC Plan 27
GoFobo IMC Plan 28
GoFobo IMC Plan 29
GoFobo IMC Plan 30
With this information we will be able to leverage the 115,000 page likes that GoFobo
currently has on Facebook to create awareness as well as spark interest and action. In order to
GoFobo IMC Plan 31
roll out our user-generated content forum we plan on utilizing Facebook to help us create interest
among users and ultimately for them to spend more time on the website.
Another platform that we recommend implementing is the Snapchat Geofilters that would
coincide with the location of the user. These locations would be geographic regions containing
movie theaters that will show screening events for films that GoFobo promotes. The pricing for
implementing a Geofilter varies depending on the what is included in the Geofilter, as well as the
location you would like it to appear for Snapchat users. We will be allocating 25% or
approximately $15,000 of our budget to GoFobo’s social media platforms.
Loyalty Program
Another tool we plan to use involves establishing a formalized loyalty program to help
retain current users and incentivize them to keep coming back to our site in an effort to further
drive more engagement. This loyalty program would also require its own landing page for users
to sign up or register. Upon registration for this program, the user will be provided with a
rewards number for tracking purposes. This rewards number will be entered at the same stage of
the regular login process. This loyalty program would be based on a point system where we
would essentially divide it into various tiers or levels, with three different ways for users to earn
points.
The first and simplest way for users to earn points will be simply by inputting their zip
code and searching for an available screening. We don’t want the program to discourage users
who come to the website and aren’t able to find an available screening. At the same time,
because this action is so simple and can be completed numerous times without limitations, we
will only offer 1 point for all searches conducted during a website visit and stayed on the website
for at least 3 minutes (not 1 point per search).
GoFobo IMC Plan 32
The second way for users to earn points is based on how many total screening events the
user has been to. The more screenings the user attends, the more points that user will receive.
Because the emphasis of our overall IMC plan is placed on expanding their services, only two
points will be awarded for obtaining an advanced screening pass.
Another way for users to earn points would be to integrate the aforementioned user
generated content forums. Similar to the amount of screenings, the more a user writes posts in
these forums, the more points they will be awarded. In order to place an emphasis on retaining
users past the ticket retrieval process, users will receive three points for any content they post in
either of the two forums. If a user utilizes all possible avenues to earn rewards points throughout
the ticket retrieval process, their total point potential on a per screening basis is a minimum of 9
points. This number is subject to change depending on how many posts the user writes in the pre
and post screening forums.
Once a user has earned enough points to move up a level, they will qualify to choose
from some sort of prize. The prizes we offer will include merchandise related to a past screening
the user has been to and will also increase in value as the user moves up to the higher levels. We
have set aside 4 tiers or levels--similar to medals received in athletic competitions--that users can
work towards to earn their prizes from GoFobo. The first, or lowest point level, will be titled
Bronze, which will require users to break the threshold of 25 points. The next level will require
users to break the threshold of 50 points, and will be titled Silver. The third level will require
users to reach a point total of 75, and will be titled Gold. The fourth and final, or highest, level
that users will be able to reach will be titled Platinum, and will require a point total of 100 (use
Figure 12).
Figure 12
GoFobo IMC Plan 33
Again, this program will comprise 25% of our annual budget with $15,000 allocated to
it’s creation.
Sweepstakes
The next tool we plan to utilize involves the integration of more creative contests and
sweepstakes to generate interest within the site. Though attempts have already been made to
incorporate these tools, we’d specifically like to conduct sweepstakes once every other month.
These sweepstakes would coincide with upcoming film releases where our users can essentially
win prizes that consists of posters, t-shirts, or any relevant merchandise related to that specific
film (use Figure 13).
Figure 13
GoFobo IMC Plan 34
We would like to strategically market our contests and/or sweepstakes relative to the
upcoming films we would currently promote on the website. So for example, with Marvel’s
Captain America: Civil War coming up in May, we would essentially promote our contest with
official Captain America movie posters by Marvel or any collectible Captain America action
figures/statues that fans and contestants can possibly win as participants in the sweepstakes. The
purpose here is to further accomplish one of our primary goals of providing content beyond the
RSVP and screening experience in an effort to retain our users and give them more of an
incentive to keep coming back to our site. By offering users with fun and desirable prizes that
these possible contestants actually want to win, we hope to encourage them to sign up for the
contests and generate a greater turnout, in turn, further increasing engagement between the user
and GoFobo. This would take up 19.5% of our total budget, which would amount to $11,700.
SEO/SEM
GoFobo IMC Plan 35
Last but not least, we’d like to leverage GoFobo’s already high standing in Search Engine
Optimization in order to again, generate more interest and awareness to better reach their
audiences. As of right now through utilizing SEO, GoFobo is currently ranked #3 on Bing under
“free advanced screenings” or “free advanced screening tickets”, and pops up on the very first
page of every major search engine tool on the internet (use Figure 14).
Figure 14
GoFobo IMC Plan 36
Since GoFobo has very few direct competitors in the space for advanced screenings, it
will be very crucial to capitalize on that moving forward. Given GoFobo already has a relatively
high standing in the SEO rankings, we feel they should not spend any additional amount than
GoFobo IMC Plan 37
what they currently spend. This will allow GoFobo to focus more of its resources on the other
components of our IMC Mix and utilize SEO in a manner in which we can again, complement
and further bolster the other aspects of our IMC Mix. This would take up the least amount on our
budget at 5.5%, which would be allocated at an estimated $3,300.
Other Current Media Strategies
Blogs: GoFobo currently writes blogs on their site. We suggest GoFobo continue this as
this will in turn bring more traffic to their site when readers click on their blog.
Direct Email: Utilizing GoFobo’s strong database of 4 million users will be a great way
to stay “top of mind” by sending out emails to them. The Monthly Newsletter with 3 articles that
go out to all 4 million users every month is also a great way for GoFobo to reach their users for
free. With an average of 1,200 weekly new users, GoFobo needs to create a rich experience for
these users to come back to the site and we believe direct email and the monthly newsletter can
help foster that experience.
Surveys: Surveys will help GoFobo better understand their users needs and how or in
what direction their preferences shift toward.
Aside from the current media strategies that GoFobo currently deploys, we would like to
make a small adjustment to their website. In particular, we would like to tweak the search
capability of current available screenings. Right now there is no option for users to search the
available screenings by movie title. In order to make the available screenings more navigable
there are two options we’ve identified to resolving the issue. The first would be to have them
listed alphabetically below the current preview of available screenings. The second option would
be to install a search bar specifically catered to searching the available screenings by movie title
and also would auto-populate results based on what is being typed. We recommend
GoFobo IMC Plan 38
implementing both options. The list would cater more to the user who are passively browsing
movies, while the search bar would allow the movie enthusiasts to quickly and easily find the
exact movie they had in mind when they visited the site.
Specific Media Objectives/Mix
The implementation of our media tactics are specific to internet based channels allowing
our reach to extend throughout the United States. The media we will use to achieve our
objectives include the creation of loyalty programs, implementing bi-monthly contests and
sweepstakes, the addition of User Generated Content Forums, Social Media and SEO/SEM.
Depending on the objectives for each target market is how we will determine which tools we will
utilize for each.
We will utilize all of GoFobo’s social media accounts; which include Facebook,
Instagram, and Twitter, in order to increase the awareness level of the company specifically to
our Young Adults and Movie Enthusiasts. We want to stay “Top of Mind Awareness” with these
two target markets in particular since they are the most prominent social media users. Families
will also benefit from our social media because it is a channel that anyone is able to access, but
referring to the content we plan to provide we will tailor our messages more towards the first two
target markets mentioned. Promoting awareness as well as creating engagement with users will
be throughout the calendar year (365 days) beginning June 2016 through June 2017,
respectively. The funds will pay for sponsored posts in which we can choose our target markets,
range, and frequencies of posted media. We chose this media tactic to increase awareness
because social media is so widely used, it is able to encompass all target markets.
We have allocated $3,300 which is 5.5% of our budget to SEO & SEM in order to
increase consumer interest in GoFobo and the service that it provides. The company has already
GoFobo IMC Plan 39
established dominance in terms of looking for advanced screening movie companies via search
engines. This extra $3,300 will help to maintain dominance in this sector and will increase
consumer interest due to its top rankings on search engine sites. SEO and SEM funded activities
will also be consistent throughout the next year, beginning June 1, 2016.
The creation of a loyalty program for GoFobo users will drive consumer action by
providing incentive to continually visit and use the site. These incentives create interest by
serving as a reminder that the service exists, as well as improve the overall consumer perception
of GoFobo. 25% or $15,000 of our budget will be dedicated to this program. Along with the
previous two media tactics, the loyalty program will be implemented for a year long period,
beginning June 1, 2016.
The strategy of creating contests and sweepstakes for GoFobo users will be implemented
in order to increase the desire to visit and use the site among consumers. This adds value and
gives incentive and a reason in the eyes of the consumer to keep coming back to the GoFobo site
on top of the service the company provides. 19.5% of our budget, which comes out to $11,700
will be directed toward this tactic. Contests and sweepstakes will be held bi-monthly in order to
attain a consistent and frequent incentive for users to continually visit and use the site. This will
begin with the rest of the tactics on June 1, 2016.
User generated content forums will be implemented into the GoFobo site to stimulate
action from current consumers. It will increase consumer’s opinion of using the site and in turn
increase the site’s visit and retention rates. These forums will be allocated the final 25% of our
budget, $15,000. These closed forums will begin with the rest of the IMC plan, and be open to be
accessed only by GoFobo users who proceeded to reserve and use an advanced screening ticket
from the company. A forum will be created for each movie screening provided on the GoFobo
GoFobo IMC Plan 40
site throughout the year. This will increase action of redeeming tickets as well as increase site
visit time and interaction.
By combining these various tactics strategically and correctly, our group has decided that
these strategies will be extremely effective in achieving our media plan of generating new users
and increasing website use. Our timeline is shown on Figure 15.
Figure 15
Evaluation Program
User-Generated Content Forum
In order to evaluate the user generated forums we plan on implementing, we would like
to send out monthly surveys to users in order for them to give feedback on their likes and dislikes
of the forum. One of the ways that GoFobo can monitor how many users are part of the UGC is
by analyzing the data on the survey of how many users are redeeming their passes as well as how
many users are clicking on the link in the survey that is sent out shortly after the advanced
screening. We can also use this data to see consistency of use of the forum, and how effective it
GoFobo IMC Plan 41
is in increasing time spent on the site by consumers. Google Analytics provides real-time reports
letting a person see how many active users are on the site.
Social Media Metrics
Moving on to our social media, we plan on measuring the effectiveness of engagement
depending on what we plan on utilizing for each target market. Social media can be utilized to
obtain different objectives – awareness and engagement. This includes amount of likes,
mentions, posts, followers, interactions, and overall presence within each of these social media
platforms. Snapchat will be able to be measured through their website once you have created a
Geofilter you have the ability to see who has viewed your Geofilter as well as how many people
have used it (use Figure 16). when you At the end of the IMC Campaign we will be able to
document the same elements and compare them to those taken before the IMC plan was
implemented in order to measure our plan’s rate of success.
Figure 16
GoFobo IMC Plan 42
Loyalty Program Metrics
In terms of the Loyalty program, we will evaluate it by conducting qualitative surveys
amongst our consumers, as well as looking at the analytical data to measure change in customer
retention rate, customer effort score, and customer lifetime value. As far as our loyalty program
goes, since one of our primary objectives is to keep customers engaged and coming back, we’d
like to focus most of our efforts on measuring customer retention rate. The surveys will be
presented to consumers at the end of the one year IMC program we have developed in order to
get direct responses and reactions to the program.
Contests/Sweepstakes Metrics
We will test the participation and interest of the sweepstakes and contests one by one
throughout the year. By evaluating basic data such as amount of participants and changes in new
users or time spent on site after each event is held, we will be able to measure how effective
GoFobo IMC Plan 43
these strategies were in achieving our IMC goal. Also, by monitoring and analyzing data event
by event, we will be able to modify each contest and sweepstake throughout the year to achieve
more and more success as the plan progresses.
SEO & SEM Metrics
We will be able to use analytical data from GoFobo to observe the click through rate
before and after the execution of our plan which will measure the effectiveness of the slightly
increased attention to SEO and SEM utilization. We will be able to see how many consumers
found the site through a search engine and compare to the current data that they have. Google
Adwords is also a tool that can be utilized to measure SEO. (Use Figure 17).
Figure 17
References
About The Walt Disney Studios. (2016). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from
http://waltdisneystudios.com/corp/about
GoFobo IMC Plan 44
About Us - Fandango. (2016). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from
http://www.fandango.com/AboutUs.aspx
Bichell, R. E. (2016, January 14). Average Age Of First-Time Moms Keeps Climbing In The
U.S. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2016/01/14/462816458/average-age-of-first-time-moms-keeps-climbing-in-the-u-s
By The Book: What’s Bringing Young Adult Fans to Theaters?. (2014, December 18).
Retrieved April 24, 2016, from http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/by-the-
book-whats-bringing-young-adult-fans-to-theaters.html
Comparing Millennials to Other Generations. (2015, March 19). Retrieved April 25,
2016, from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/03/19/comparing-millennials-to-other-
generations/#!15
Fetto, J. (2010, February 20). 2010 American Movie-Goer Consumer Report - Marketing
Forward Blog. Retrieved April 25, 2016, from
http://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-forward/2010/02/20/2010-american-movie-
goer-consumer-report/
Film Clip & Still Licensing | Sony Pictures Studios. (2016). Retrieved April 17, 2016,
from http://www.sonypictures.com/studios/filmclipandstilllicensing.php
Free Movie Screenings - Movie Discounts - Fandango VIP. (2016). Retrieved April 17,
2016, from https://www.fandango.com/fandangovip?source=web_globalnav_join
Gaille, B. (2015, April 15). 21 Fantastic Moviegoer Demographics. Retrieved April 24, 2016,
from http://brandongaille.com/21-fantastic-moviegoer-demographics/
GoFobo IMC Plan 45
Graham, C. (2014, June 3). How to Evaluate and Measure Loyalty Program Success. Retrieved
April 17, 2016, from http://customerthink.com/how-to-evaluate-and-measure-loyalty-
program-success/
IMDbPro. (2016). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from
https://secure.imdb.com/signup/index.html?rf=cons_nb_hm
Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next. (2010). Retrieved April 17, 2016 from
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-
change.pdf
On-Demand Geofilter Terms and Conditions. (2016, February 27). Retrieved April 17,
2016, from https://geofilters.snapchat.com/terms-and-conditions
Parental Guidance Suggested: Movie Time is Family Fun . (2013, December 19).
Retrieved April 25, 2016, from
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/parental-guidance-suggested-movie-
time-is-family-fun.html
POPCORN PEOPLE: PROFILES OF THE U.S. MOVIEGOER AUDIENCE. (2013,
January 29). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/popcorn-people-profiles-of-the-u-s-
moviegoer-audience.html
Secrets to Attending Free Advanced Movie Screenings. (2014, June 25). Retrieved April 17,
2016, from http://www.fatmovieguy.com/how-to-attend-free-advanced-movie-
screenings/
Spoiler Alert: Mobile Moviegoers Are The Biggest Movie Enthusiasts. (2013, February
12). Retrieved April 25, 2016, from
GoFobo IMC Plan 46
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/spoiler-alert-mobile-moviegoers-are-the-
biggest-movie-enthusiasts.html
Stark, J. (2013, January 03). The Best Reasons for Going to the Movies Alone - Next Avenue.
Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.nextavenue.org/ticket-one-best-reasons-
going-movies-alone/
Appendix
GoFobo IMC Plan 47
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
GoFobo IMC Plan 48
Figure 5
Figure 6
GoFobo IMC Plan 49
Figure 7
Figure 8
GoFobo IMC Plan 50
Figure 9
GoFobo IMC Plan 51
Figure 10
GoFobo IMC Plan 52
Figure 11 (Survey & Results)
GoFobo IMC Plan 53
GoFobo IMC Plan 54
GoFobo IMC Plan 55
GoFobo IMC Plan 56
Figure 12
GoFobo IMC Plan 57
Figure 13
GoFobo IMC Plan 58
Figure 14
GoFobo IMC Plan 59
GoFobo IMC Plan 60
Figure 15
Figure 16
GoFobo IMC Plan 61
Figure 17

More Related Content

Viewers also liked

surfexcel-ariel-ppt
surfexcel-ariel-pptsurfexcel-ariel-ppt
surfexcel-ariel-pptankita235
 
Ariel-4p's and stp
Ariel-4p's and stpAriel-4p's and stp
Ariel-4p's and stpanandganpaa
 
Advertising management
Advertising managementAdvertising management
Advertising managementRenuka Ubale
 
Volkswagen India - IMC Campaign
Volkswagen India -  IMC CampaignVolkswagen India -  IMC Campaign
Volkswagen India - IMC CampaignSiddharth Sriram
 
Ariel Market Penetration Strategy.
Ariel Market Penetration Strategy.Ariel Market Penetration Strategy.
Ariel Market Penetration Strategy.bharatkhandelwal
 
IMC Campaign for Robi presents Ad Maker Bangladesh 2015- Team Dexters
IMC Campaign for Robi presents Ad Maker Bangladesh 2015- Team DextersIMC Campaign for Robi presents Ad Maker Bangladesh 2015- Team Dexters
IMC Campaign for Robi presents Ad Maker Bangladesh 2015- Team DextersMd. Samid Razzak
 
Detergent Market in India as of 2015 (Surf Excel, Ariel, Nirma, Wheel, Tide, ...
Detergent Market in India as of 2015 (Surf Excel, Ariel, Nirma, Wheel, Tide, ...Detergent Market in India as of 2015 (Surf Excel, Ariel, Nirma, Wheel, Tide, ...
Detergent Market in India as of 2015 (Surf Excel, Ariel, Nirma, Wheel, Tide, ...Arjun Parekh
 

Viewers also liked (9)

surfexcel-ariel-ppt
surfexcel-ariel-pptsurfexcel-ariel-ppt
surfexcel-ariel-ppt
 
Surf excel vs ariel
Surf excel vs arielSurf excel vs ariel
Surf excel vs ariel
 
Ariel-4p's and stp
Ariel-4p's and stpAriel-4p's and stp
Ariel-4p's and stp
 
Advertising management
Advertising managementAdvertising management
Advertising management
 
Volkswagen India - IMC Campaign
Volkswagen India -  IMC CampaignVolkswagen India -  IMC Campaign
Volkswagen India - IMC Campaign
 
Ariel Market Penetration Strategy.
Ariel Market Penetration Strategy.Ariel Market Penetration Strategy.
Ariel Market Penetration Strategy.
 
IMC Campaign for Robi presents Ad Maker Bangladesh 2015- Team Dexters
IMC Campaign for Robi presents Ad Maker Bangladesh 2015- Team DextersIMC Campaign for Robi presents Ad Maker Bangladesh 2015- Team Dexters
IMC Campaign for Robi presents Ad Maker Bangladesh 2015- Team Dexters
 
Detergent Market in India as of 2015 (Surf Excel, Ariel, Nirma, Wheel, Tide, ...
Detergent Market in India as of 2015 (Surf Excel, Ariel, Nirma, Wheel, Tide, ...Detergent Market in India as of 2015 (Surf Excel, Ariel, Nirma, Wheel, Tide, ...
Detergent Market in India as of 2015 (Surf Excel, Ariel, Nirma, Wheel, Tide, ...
 
Nike, inc & IMC
Nike, inc & IMCNike, inc & IMC
Nike, inc & IMC
 

Similar to Advanced Movie Screenings IMC Plan

Distribution and Marketing Plan for MyFlix App.docx
Distribution and Marketing Plan for MyFlix App.docxDistribution and Marketing Plan for MyFlix App.docx
Distribution and Marketing Plan for MyFlix App.docxCarolinaMorrone2
 
Participant’s Guide 2015 Edition Crea.docx
Participant’s  Guide  2015 Edition    Crea.docxParticipant’s  Guide  2015 Edition    Crea.docx
Participant’s Guide 2015 Edition Crea.docxherbertwilson5999
 
Team GoPro - Final Paper
Team GoPro - Final PaperTeam GoPro - Final Paper
Team GoPro - Final PaperBCautomac33
 
Marketing Plan- Motionsphere
Marketing Plan- MotionsphereMarketing Plan- Motionsphere
Marketing Plan- MotionsphereDouglasJokerst
 
Final Business Proposal
Final Business ProposalFinal Business Proposal
Final Business ProposalMarion Jones
 
Gorman IMAX-marketing plan
Gorman IMAX-marketing planGorman IMAX-marketing plan
Gorman IMAX-marketing planBritanyGorman
 
Greystripe Consumer Insights Report Q1
Greystripe Consumer Insights Report Q1Greystripe Consumer Insights Report Q1
Greystripe Consumer Insights Report Q1Dev Khare
 
Heroes on the go mccloskey bp final
Heroes on the go mccloskey bp finalHeroes on the go mccloskey bp final
Heroes on the go mccloskey bp finalSamanta Rosas
 
John Landry Sony RFP Final
John Landry Sony RFP FinalJohn Landry Sony RFP Final
John Landry Sony RFP FinalJohn Landry
 
GoPro Investor presentation - August 2016
GoPro Investor presentation - August 2016GoPro Investor presentation - August 2016
GoPro Investor presentation - August 2016investorsgopro
 
Running head CAREER CONNECTION Final Strategic Plan1CAREER.docx
Running head CAREER CONNECTION Final Strategic Plan1CAREER.docxRunning head CAREER CONNECTION Final Strategic Plan1CAREER.docx
Running head CAREER CONNECTION Final Strategic Plan1CAREER.docxsusanschei
 
Running head INFORMATION SYSTEM 1INFORMATION SYSTEM5.docx
Running head INFORMATION SYSTEM 1INFORMATION SYSTEM5.docxRunning head INFORMATION SYSTEM 1INFORMATION SYSTEM5.docx
Running head INFORMATION SYSTEM 1INFORMATION SYSTEM5.docxcowinhelen
 
K^2 Presentation: 2020 Foresight - Jordan Rohan
K^2 Presentation: 2020 Foresight - Jordan RohanK^2 Presentation: 2020 Foresight - Jordan Rohan
K^2 Presentation: 2020 Foresight - Jordan RohanKenshoo
 
Top 10 Marketing Predictions Final
Top 10 Marketing Predictions FinalTop 10 Marketing Predictions Final
Top 10 Marketing Predictions FinalHoward Greenstein
 
Ignition one - digital marketing report - Q3 2015
Ignition one - digital marketing report - Q3 2015Ignition one - digital marketing report - Q3 2015
Ignition one - digital marketing report - Q3 2015Romain Fonnier
 
Teads - forrester - report
Teads - forrester - reportTeads - forrester - report
Teads - forrester - reportRomain Fonnier
 

Similar to Advanced Movie Screenings IMC Plan (20)

Distribution and Marketing Plan for MyFlix App.docx
Distribution and Marketing Plan for MyFlix App.docxDistribution and Marketing Plan for MyFlix App.docx
Distribution and Marketing Plan for MyFlix App.docx
 
Participant’s Guide 2015 Edition Crea.docx
Participant’s  Guide  2015 Edition    Crea.docxParticipant’s  Guide  2015 Edition    Crea.docx
Participant’s Guide 2015 Edition Crea.docx
 
Team GoPro - Final Paper
Team GoPro - Final PaperTeam GoPro - Final Paper
Team GoPro - Final Paper
 
Marketing Plan- Motionsphere
Marketing Plan- MotionsphereMarketing Plan- Motionsphere
Marketing Plan- Motionsphere
 
Final Business Proposal
Final Business ProposalFinal Business Proposal
Final Business Proposal
 
GWL6 Assignment
GWL6 AssignmentGWL6 Assignment
GWL6 Assignment
 
Team project for Flixiago
Team project for FlixiagoTeam project for Flixiago
Team project for Flixiago
 
Gorman IMAX-marketing plan
Gorman IMAX-marketing planGorman IMAX-marketing plan
Gorman IMAX-marketing plan
 
Greystripe Consumer Insights Report Q1
Greystripe Consumer Insights Report Q1Greystripe Consumer Insights Report Q1
Greystripe Consumer Insights Report Q1
 
Heroes on the go mccloskey bp final
Heroes on the go mccloskey bp finalHeroes on the go mccloskey bp final
Heroes on the go mccloskey bp final
 
John Landry Sony RFP Final
John Landry Sony RFP FinalJohn Landry Sony RFP Final
John Landry Sony RFP Final
 
GoPro Investor presentation - August 2016
GoPro Investor presentation - August 2016GoPro Investor presentation - August 2016
GoPro Investor presentation - August 2016
 
Running head CAREER CONNECTION Final Strategic Plan1CAREER.docx
Running head CAREER CONNECTION Final Strategic Plan1CAREER.docxRunning head CAREER CONNECTION Final Strategic Plan1CAREER.docx
Running head CAREER CONNECTION Final Strategic Plan1CAREER.docx
 
Running head INFORMATION SYSTEM 1INFORMATION SYSTEM5.docx
Running head INFORMATION SYSTEM 1INFORMATION SYSTEM5.docxRunning head INFORMATION SYSTEM 1INFORMATION SYSTEM5.docx
Running head INFORMATION SYSTEM 1INFORMATION SYSTEM5.docx
 
campaignhangar1
campaignhangar1campaignhangar1
campaignhangar1
 
K^2 Presentation: 2020 Foresight - Jordan Rohan
K^2 Presentation: 2020 Foresight - Jordan RohanK^2 Presentation: 2020 Foresight - Jordan Rohan
K^2 Presentation: 2020 Foresight - Jordan Rohan
 
Top 10 Marketing Predictions Final
Top 10 Marketing Predictions FinalTop 10 Marketing Predictions Final
Top 10 Marketing Predictions Final
 
Ignition one - digital marketing report - Q3 2015
Ignition one - digital marketing report - Q3 2015Ignition one - digital marketing report - Q3 2015
Ignition one - digital marketing report - Q3 2015
 
Teads forrester-report
Teads forrester-reportTeads forrester-report
Teads forrester-report
 
Teads - forrester - report
Teads - forrester - reportTeads - forrester - report
Teads - forrester - report
 

Advanced Movie Screenings IMC Plan

  • 1. Marketing 472 – Advanced IMC 2016 Spring Semester SDSU GoFobo – Professor Peter By: Zach Rojina Erika Gutierrez Jefferson Cortez Wesley Billingsly May 2nd, 2016 Table of Contents Executive Summary………………………………………………………………….……....……3
  • 2. GoFobo IMC Plan 1 Industry Review………………………………………………………………………………...…4 Company Review……………………………………………….………….………………….…..5 a. Company Snapshot………………………………………………………………..………5 b. Target Markets…………………………………………………………………………….6 c. Current Marketing Mix……………………………………………………………………6 Product Review …………..…………………………………………….…………....……...…….7 a. Unique Selling Proposition……………………………….………………......……..…….8 b. SWOT….……………………………………………………………………..……..…….8 Buyer Analysis………………………………………………………………………...……….….8 Competitive Review…………………………………………………………….…………....……9 a. Direct Competitors…………………………………….…………………………………..9 b. Indirect Competitors………………………………………………………………....……9 Segmentation……………………………………………………………………………………..12 Targeting…………………………………...…………………………………………………….12 a. Target Profile #1: Young Adults…………………...…………………………………….12 b. Target Profile #2: Families………………………………………………...…………..…13 c. Target Profile #3: Movie Enthusiasts…………………………...……………………..…14 Positioning………………………………………………………………………………….........15 Communications Objectives and Budget Request……………………………...……………..…16 a. Communication Objectives………………………………………………………………16 b. Budget Request…………………………………………………………………………..18
  • 3. GoFobo IMC Plan 2 Creative Strategy Statement……………………………………………..……………………….20 IMC Mix………………………………………………………...……………………………….21 a. User-Generated Content Forums………………………………………...………………21 b. Social Media……………………………………………………………………………..24 c. Loyalty Program………………………………………………………………………....30 d. Contests/Sweepstakes……………………………………………………………………32 e. SEO/SEM…………………………………………………………………………….......34 f. Other Current Media Strategies……………………………………………………….…36 Specific Media Objectives/Mix………………………………………………………………….37 Evaluation Program……………………………………………………………………………...40 a. User-Generated Content Forum Metrics…………………………………………....……40 b. Social Media Metrics………………………………………………………………...…..40 c. Loyalty Program Metrics………………………………………………………….……..40 d. Contests/Sweepstakes Metrics……………………………………………………….…..41 e. SEO/SEM Metrics……………………………………………………………………….41 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Our IMC plan for GoFobo has been specifically constructed to achieve the company’s desired goals as well as goals we have set based on our own research. These goals primarily
  • 4. GoFobo IMC Plan 3 revolve around gaining new users, retaining users, and increasing time spent on the site by its customers. It has been designed to create and provide offers and services that do not devalue the company in any way. Among other information you will be able to find an extensive Industry Analysis as well as a Situation Analysis on GoFobo. This campaign will last the length of one year, beginning on June 2016 through June 2017, respectively. This plan will require an overall budget of $60,000 for a calendar year. As our slogan implies, we will use this plan to show the world that ‘You can’t go without GoFobo’ creating a sense of exclusivity amongst users. Our IMC plan consists of focusing on three primary targeted audiences. The first of these, and our primary audience of focus, we have come to call movie enthusiasts. The second target market we have grouped as young adults, and the third we have classified as families. The reasoning for our division of the target audience into these segments, and our priority listing among them will be described in detail. We will conclude our IMC plan by conducting an evaluation of our IMC mix at the end of the program’s year. The primary method for evaluating these IMC tools will be to obtain and analyze data provided by GoFobo’s analytical software. In turn, measuring effectiveness will determine whether the media strategies suggested should be kept or discarded. As needed, we can obtain necessary evaluation metrics and consumer feedback through qualitative surveys and forum success rates. Industry Review The film industry is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, player in the broader entertainment sector; it is considered a cornerstone of the industry. It is expected, that the sector as a whole generated 564 billion U.S. dollars in revenue by the end of 2015. Forecasts predict that the entertainment industry will grow to over 679 billion US dollars in value over the next
  • 5. GoFobo IMC Plan 4 four years, proving its worth in domestic markets and as a major U.S. export (Theatrical Market Statistics, 2015). Although GoFobo is in the film industry they land in a relatively new subcategory within the film industry. The concept of making advanced viewings of featured films available to the general public to view before their official release date is still rather new. We discovered from our research, and using multiple databases in the campus library, that this is in fact a new subcategory within the movie industry as a whole. Due to this fact, portions of this paper use insights and facts pertaining to the film industry in general. We feel that since the timing of the movie viewings is the primary characteristic of this subcategory, that these insights and facts will still provide us with the most accurate information to analyze GoFobo. While this concept is new, and offers GoFobo potential for many lucrative opportunities, it does have one drawback. The first being the possibility that film studios, or filmmakers in general, can completely opt out of offering advanced screenings before an official release date. While this is a very real possibility, our group feels that there are enough opportunities for growth to outweigh these disadvantages. Currently, the service of offering advanced screenings is typically outsourced entirely to an advertising or public relations agency, or it is put together by an in-house department within a film studio. We have identified Sony Pictures and The Walt Disney Studios as the two largest film studios with an in-house department for coordinating their own advanced screening offerings. Fandango was the only other competitor we were able to identify as a third party provider of advanced screenings. However, this is not the primary focus of Fandango’s service, serving as a small portion of their business model. We have identified various reasons why both the direct and indirect competitors GoFobo currently faces provide no real threat to the growth and success of GoFobo.
  • 6. GoFobo IMC Plan 5 Company Review Company Snapshot The primary service GoFobo provides is the setting up and facilitating of advanced movie screening events as well as offering promotions and sweepstakes. GoFobo is a unique company in the sense that they operate in both a business to business channel, as well as a business to consumer channel. In the business to business channel, GoFobo is a cloud-based solution that allows businesses to manage promotional screening campaigns from start to finish, utilizing a simple and intuitive interface, as well as providing access to millions of moviegoers. GoFobo consults with various film studios to partner up in offering advanced screenings of their films. The benefit the film studios receive from this partnership is really multifaceted. GoFobo merged with TicktBox in 2013 to form the largest third party advanced movie screening event coordinator in the United States. Through this merger, GoFobo gained access to several technology patents in TicktBox’s secure permissions based client backend system section of its interface. This system allows GoFobo’s clients, the film studios, access to real time data collected from the advanced screening ticket retrieval process. The advanced screening ticket retrieval process eventually takes you to a customer landing page, where film studios have the option to include branded elements, run sweepstakes instantly, and provide social media integration. In addition to the landing page, GoFobo coordinates the entire ticket creation process, where it offers its clients co- branded tickets, QR code verification, a prominent promotional partner logo, and has multiple different types of tickets--VIP, press. GoFobo has also aligned itself with the consumer trend of increasing smartphone usage, and has made its landing page accessible via a mobile device in addition to making the ticket scannable on any mobile device.
  • 7. GoFobo IMC Plan 6 In the business to consumer channel, GoFobo offers a branded webpage where users can create an account and gain access to the over 80,000 advanced movie screenings that GoFobo has coordinated. The pieces of information you need to provide in order to make a GoFobo account are your name and email address, a password, your birthdate, gender and zip code. Once you have made an account on GoFobo, you can search for advanced screenings by location when you enter your zip code, or simply browse the movies they have listed on their “FIND SCREENINGS” page. When you have found the screening you would like to see, you simply click the “Get Passes” option, and are provided with a code you enter on GoFobo’s website. You will then be directed to a printable page of your ticket, as well as have a copy emailed to you. Once you have your ticket printed or accessible on your smartphone, you are ready to attend an advanced screening set up by GoFobo. Target Markets GoFobo currently has a database that is able to reach as much as 4 million current users. Among those users the ages vary from 13 years of age to 65+ years of age. Current Marketing Mix Social Media: GoFobo currently has a strong social media standing with over 115,000 likes on their Facebook page, around 45,000 followers on Twitter, and more than 8,000 followers on Instagram. They use their Social Media for different reasons whether it is to create awareness, interest amongst users or to reach them through advertisements. Blogs: GoFobo currently writes blogs on their site, which in turn helps create more traffic to their site.
  • 8. GoFobo IMC Plan 7 Sweepstakes: GoFobo currently partners and sponsors different events depending on the city that the users are in. In San Diego, for example, they have partnered with HBO and offer their users a free three month subscription. Surveys: GoFobo currently sends surveys to their users as a way to identify Customer Satisfaction or simply learning more about their users. Monthly Newsletter: GoFobo currently sends their users a monthly newsletter that includes three articles about current events. Product Review The primary service GoFobo provides is the setting up and facilitating of advanced movie screening events as well as offering promotions and sweepstakes. GoFobo positions themselves as a provider of premium services within the movie industry. They are attempting to remain differentiated from common informational databases for films such as IMDB.com or MoviePilot.com. The reason for this positioning is an attempt to not devalue the brand identity that GoFobo has created. Based on GoFobo’s current position in the service category, we believe they will be able to leverage their standing to become the leader in offering advanced screenings. Unique Selling Proposition The unique selling proposition GoFobo offers to its end users is that, thanks to its relationship with film studios, the advanced screening ticket is available to its users free of charge. SWOT The service category that GoFobo currently operates in is new, therefore we wanted to complete an internal analysis to figure out what to attribute their success to. In conducting this analysis, one of the main strengths of their service that we identified is their expansive portfolio
  • 9. GoFobo IMC Plan 8 of services they offer for film studios. These service offerings allow them to maintain valuable relationships with big name film studios, while still positioning themselves at a premium price point. Piggybacking off of the aforementioned strength, we also identified their ability to provide end users with free advanced screening passes to films released by these film studios as a final important strength. The simplicity of their current business model for the end user has left GoFobo with the opportunity to offer additional services and or features within the portfolio they already offer. Conversely, one of GoFobo’s primary weaknesses we were able to identify in conducting an internal analysis includes their struggle to retain customers. Similarly, users visiting the site exclusively to retrieve tickets and then only returning periodically is another weakness for GoFobo. Additionally, GoFobo struggles with a lack of valuable content on their website. Buyer Analysis While GoFobo is already established among film studios for their highly valuable data collection technology, they are still trying to better appeal to the end user who obtains free screening passes. The related purchase process, which has no associated cost for GoFobo users, can be characterized as very low-involvement for the user. As mentioned earlier, the process only involves two steps. The first step is to login to your account, followed by step two, which is to enter the provided code after you find an available screening. Because this is such a low- involvement process, GoFobo feels that there is a void to be filled in its current line of services offered. Our team has addressed this issue head on, and come up with several solutions contained in the IMC Mix portion of this report. Competitive Review
  • 10. GoFobo IMC Plan 9 Direct Competitors GoFobo competes in an industry subcategory that still has yet to reach its full growth potential. The immaturity of this subcategory has left GoFobo with relatively few competitors in comparison with other companies in the industry of offering services. GoFobo’s only direct competitors that we were able to identify are various advertising and public relations agencies. There is no clear lead agency in terms of number of relationships with studios to consistently promote and coordinate advanced screening events. While advertising and public relations agencies do pose a threat to GoFobo, this is a very weak threat. In analyzing these agencies’ breadth and depth of service, they cannot offer comparable promotional and coordinating capabilities. As stated in the company review, these industry leading promotional capabilities include providing promotional materials such as branded tickets, campaign oversight, webpage development and social media integration. However, in a much broader sense GoFobo has other indirect competitors which we will elaborate on. Indirect Competitors GoFobo’s next closest indirect competitor in the market of offering advanced screening events is Fandango. Fandango is primarily an e-commerce site who offers a wide variety of services related to the movie industry. One of the many services Fandango offers its users includes giving out free tickets to advanced screenings to “FandangoVIP” members. Similar to the ticket retrieval process for GoFobo, all that a user needs to provide in order to become a “FandangoVIP” member is an email. Although advanced screenings are a component of Fandango’s service portfolio, it is not the primary focus of their business model. The main source of Fandango’s competitive advantage stems from their broad portfolio of partnerships with movie theatre company's/owners. Because there is a fundamental difference between the
  • 11. GoFobo IMC Plan 10 source of competitive advantage for GoFobo--their relationships with film studios--and Fandango’s aforementioned source of competitive advantage, they do not pose a clear barrier to growth potential for GoFobo. GoFobo’s next closest indirect competitor we have identified are film studios that have chosen not to entirely outsource the service of offering advanced movie screening events. Two of the largest, and most prominent film studios that have chosen to vertically integrate themselves into offering this service are Sony Pictures Studios and The Walt Disney Studios. The difference between the two being: while Sony Pictures does offer advanced screening events for some of its films, they are actually a customer of GoFobo. They have some sort of selection process for which films they will use for their in-house department to set up advanced screenings, and which films they will license to GoFobo. The Walt Disney Studios is not affiliated with GoFobo whatsoever. Sony Pictures Studios coordinates advanced screening events for various films released by its various subdivisions via a company website called sonyscreenings.com. Some of the advanced screening events that have already been featured through the website include 22 Jump Street, Robocop, and The Monuments Men. The Walt Disney Studios offers advanced screening events via its company website SeeItFirst.net. Some of the screening events to be featured on their company website include films such as Million Dollar Arm, Need for Speed, and Delivery Man. While these two studios have partially vertically integrated themselves, their advanced screening options are limited to the films which they produce themselves. Therefore GoFobo has an advantage over these studios in terms of breadth of films they are able to provide screening events for. In addition to this limitation, film studios don’t have a comparable ability to
  • 12. GoFobo IMC Plan 11 seamlessly integrate all of the promotional materials and platforms and collect data from the users who retrieve screening passes. The last indirect competitor worth mentioning is IMDb.com, and the services offered to its premium IMDbPro members. Regardless of if you are an IMDbPro member, the primary services available to you on the IMDb.com do not conflict with those offered by GoFobo. IMDb.com is primarily used as a source of finding information pertaining to films that have already been released to the general public. These services include lists of movies and showtimes available at specific movie theatre locations, information and news about celebrities & film festivals, as well as ratings for a broad range of films. Additionally, some of the resources available to IMDbPro members are a place to create a profile containing your resume & previous work, access to current industry openings, as well as contact information for prominent figures in the film industry. The additional services offered to IMDbPro members are geared more towards those already employed or searching for employment in the film industry, than those looking to simply enjoy film and entertainment. Due to this fact, we do not view IMDb.com as a large threat to the success and growth of GoFobo. Segmentation The target audience we will be attempting to reach consists of three different market segments. These three different market segments are categorized by demographics, psychographics, and behavioral tendencies. Targeting Target Market #1: Young Adults Our first target market, which primarily consists of college students and Millennials who are just entering the workforce, are the young adults; made up of both males and females
  • 13. GoFobo IMC Plan 12 between the ages of 18-33. (Pew Research Center, 2015) According to data by the Pew Research Center on Millennials, this target demographic identified as being very tech savvy and active on Social Media. (Pew Research Center, 2010, p. 25) They were the ones out of every other generational cohort most likely to create a social networking profile, use wireless internet away from home, and post videos of themselves online. (Pew Research Center, 2010, p. 25). Further research conducted by Nielsen also suggests that the audience in this category have a particular preference for films in the Young Adult Fiction Adaptation category which would include popular YA novels adapted to film franchises such as the Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games trilogy, and the Twilight movies. (Nielsen Research, 2014) The Nielsen Research (2014) also mentioned how films in the Action Adventure, Fantasy, and Thriller genres were most popular just under the YA fiction adaptation genre (use Figure 1). Figure 1 Target Market #2: Families
  • 14. GoFobo IMC Plan 13 Our next target market consists of families whose parents’ ages range between 26-35 years old, and whose children are within the ages of 6-11 years old. (Nielsen Research, 2013) According to the Nielsen (2013) article on family audiences, on average, children went to go watch about six films in theaters in 2013 and “Of the movies children see at the theater, they go to at least half of those movies with both parents and with one of the parents on three out of ten occasions.” The Nielsen (2013) article also suggests that parents tend to be very conscious about the films they take their children to see at the theaters and that a lot is taken into consideration when choosing a film to go watch. This includes numerous factors such as MPAA Rating, What the reviewers say, and the MPAA description. The family audience in this category have a strong penchant for films within the PG, PG-13, and Animated Genres; further research indicates that “PG-13 films comprised 15 of the top 25 films in release during 2013” and that 92% of children favored Animated films the most out of every other demographic (Nielsen Research, 2013) (Gaile, 2015) (use Figures 2 & 3). Figure 2 Figure 3
  • 15. GoFobo IMC Plan 14 Target Market #3: Movie Enthusiasts Our last target market is for the movie enthusiast; this person loves everything and anything about movies and they don’t necessarily fit into a specific age group which makes them our broadest and biggest category of the three. The movie enthusiasts are also GoFobo’s current target market; they happen to be the most active on mobile, social media, and technology in general; with users using these platforms as a means to follow up on the releases of all their favorite and most anticipated films. (Nielsen Research, 2013) The Nielsen Research (2013) also mentioned how mobile moviegoers “spend more, consume more content and are more actively engaged in the moviegoing process.” and how “Smartphone and tablet owners are heavier moviegoers than average, attending 9 percent and 20 percent more movies overall.” While we weren’t able to find any particular data to profile a specific preference of film for the movie enthusiasts, we made a general assumption that these were the people who constantly go back to the theaters to watch the sequels to all their favorite franchises, to see their favorite actors/actresses, to see that next big feature from their favorite directors, or just to go because they watch all kinds of movies. As a result, it would make much more sense to focus on this particular demographic as they consume the most content in the film industry, which would in turn, make them the most profitable to target by GoFobo (use Figures 4 & 5). Figure 4 Figure 5
  • 16. GoFobo IMC Plan 15 Positioning GoFobo positions themselves as a premium service who are attempting to remain differentiated from common informational database for movies such as IMDB.com and MoviePilot.com. The reason behind their current position is to not devalue the brand image and reputation that GoFobo has created. GoFobo’s differentiation strategy will also focus on their Unique Selling Proposition, which is “Providing free advanced screening tickets for featured films.” GoFobo is different from their competitors because they offer a service that no other company is able to offer, they also have relationships with big name film studios granting them exclusive access to upcoming films. GoFobo’s target markets will be attracted mainly by their differentiation strategy which makes them an alternative to movie theaters and much cheaper as well. Communications Objectives & Budget Request
  • 17. GoFobo IMC Plan 16 The objectives for our campaign will be based as they relate to brand awareness, interest, desire, and action where we will be using the AIDA model (use Figure 6). Communications Objectives Our objectives are as follows: 1. Increase awareness level in general public: All Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat geofilter) (40%) 2. Increase interest in the service: Loyalty Program, SEO/SEM, Social Media (30%) 3. Increase desire among users: Contests/Sweepstakes (20%) 4. Increase action (engagement) with GoFobo: User Content Forums, Snapchat Geofilter Loyalty Program (10%) In order to accomplish our first objective of creating awareness we will be utilizing GoFobo’s current social media accounts; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. GoFobo is currently well established in their social media platforms, and leveraging that will just help them grow more, we plan on increasing awareness by 40%. Creating awareness is an essential part of
  • 18. GoFobo IMC Plan 17 growing business for GoFobo and is also used as a way to communicate with their current users as well as prospective users. We decided to increase awareness by 40% because it keeps GoFobo “top of mind” when users are thinking of searching for free advanced screening passes. We also included Snapchat as a medium to increase awareness, users who are signed up on the social media platform will be able to swipe through the geofilters and find our Gofobo geofilter in designated areas (use Figure 7). Figure 7
  • 19. GoFobo IMC Plan 18 For our second objective we plan on increasing interest by 30%, the reason being because our Loyalty Program will be a vital part for GoFobo users to come back to our sites, we will be providing content exclusively available for GoFobo users. We also plan on increasing interest by continuing their SEO/SEM program. Social Media will also be used to tap into GoFobo user’s interest because social media sites are used as a gateway for users interested in liking our Facebook page as well as following our Twitter page or Instagram page. For our third objective we plan on increasing desire by 20% using Contests/Sweepstakes. By conducting “enter to win” contests and sweepstakes we are able to create user desire. Our third and last objective is one of the most important ones in our AIDA model. We plan on increasing action within our users by 10% using our user-generated content forum. Our user generated content forum will be a very important part of increasing action because it is a medium that will allow GoFobo users to share ideas, comments, and share speculation about the movie before the screening occurs. Budget Request Our budget consists of $5,000 monthly which turns out to be $60,000 annually. The budgeting method that we plan to employ is the objective-and-task method. This means we will divide the budget according to what is required in order to meet our communications objectives. This method entails defining specific promotional objectives, the tasks needed to achieve these objectives and estimating the costs of performing these tasks. We will be allocating our $60,000 budget according to two communication tools which are Consumer-Oriented Sales Promotion and Digital and Social Media. The objective for utilizing this tool is to create customer retention and keep GoFobo users interested and engaged in the website. I will begin with our first communication tool: Consumer-
  • 20. GoFobo IMC Plan 19 Oriented Sales Promotion where we will be allocating 44.5% of our $60,000 budget towards these tools. The two activities that we decided to use as our Consumer-Oriented Sales Promotion will be the Loyalty Program and Contests/Sweepstakes. For our second tool, Digital and Social Media, we decided to utilize three different activities to accomplish our goals. These include two separate and distinct User-Generated Content Forums, Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat), as well as SEO/SEM. The User-Generated Content Forums are the focal point of our overall plan, and therefore require the largest portion of our budget bringing the amount to 25% of our total budget (use Figure 8). Figure 8
  • 21. GoFobo IMC Plan 20 COPY PLATFORM Client: GoFobo Product/Service: Providing free advanced screening tickets to their users. Slogan: “You, can’t go without GoFobo” or “Become an A-lister with GoFobo” Objectives: To drive engagement to retain users beyond the RSVP process and screening experience. Message Strategy Key Benefits: Use of this service will allow users to obtain free advanced screening movie tickets to highly anticipated films and once registered as a user they will have an opportunity to be a part of GoFobo’s exclusive user-generated content forum. Claims and Promises: GoFobo users will be the first to see highly anticipated films. Reassurance: By being a registered GoFobo user, users will have exclusive access to an online community that will give them the ability to connect and communicate with fellow movie enthusiasts.
  • 22. GoFobo IMC Plan 21 Message Appeals Tone: exclusivity, convenience, relaxation, pleasure, happiness Rationale for Creative Recommendations: The use of Social Media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will be used as a tool to stay ‘top of mind’ amongst users. The use of our loyalty rewards program and SEO/SEM will be used to increase interest. We plan on utilizing Contests/Sweepstakes as a medium to increase desire. Finally we will be utilizing the user generated content forum and our loyalty rewards program as a tool to increase action. Executions: GoFobo’s Marketing Team will be executing the recommendations we have listed above. Integrated Marketing Communications Mix User-Generated Content Forum As noted earlier, one of the main objectives of our IMC plan is to increase the average amount of time users spend on the site as well as to increase their weekly visits. One of the primary tools that we think would help address this issue would be to create a platform for user generated content forums. We will be creating two different types of forums, one would be geared toward movie conversations before the screening occurs, and the other would be to facilitate conversations and reactions after users have attended the screening. The advanced screening forums will be exclusively accessible to users who were provided with a code to obtain a ticket to an advanced screening event. In contrast, the post screening forums will be accessible to the general public. The goal of these forums is two-fold. We want to be sure to provide users with a space to voice their thoughts, speculations, and opinions about the upcoming movie or new movies in their favorite franchises. We also see the forums as a useful tool to help spike audience retention and create a sense of community among movie enthusiasts who visit GoFobo most frequently.
  • 23. GoFobo IMC Plan 22 Our secondary research revealed to us that current GoFobo users already utilize Facebook as a medium to voice their opinions about the movie screenings they have recently watched (use Figure 9). Figure 9
  • 24. GoFobo IMC Plan 23 Similarly, in order to transfer those users to express those thoughts and opinions onto GoFobo’s website, we will set up a separate landing page within the site that would provide ratings and feedback similar to what Rotten Tomatoes does. GoFobo currently has an option for film studios to send users a survey shortly after watching the film with a few basic questions. We would like to expand on this survey, and providing users with a link to the forum landing page that will be a part of GoFobo’s current site, further increasing their traffic. Due to the fact that users already post to Facebook with reviews and reactions to screening events, it will be the primary social media channel we use to promote our user generated content forum. Several ideas that we have come up for campaign themes are “Become
  • 25. GoFobo IMC Plan 24 an A-lister with GoFobo” or “Be the first to know with GoFobo”. This campaign will give our users a more rich experience as well as a sense of exclusivity to forums only they can access. Relating to the post screening forum, we decided to create a three-point rating system for users to rate the movie from. The names of the three different types of ratings that we will provide users with the option of giving their screening are described below. The top rated movies with 75% or higher will receive a “Majestic Double Chunk Ice Cream” rating, this is the ultimate score that movies want to receive from their critics, this means the movie was great and that they would recommend it to family and friends. The next rating is for movies that received a rating of 60% or higher and these are called the “Delightful Crunch”, meaning they were good but not great. The third and final rating a movie is able to receive is the one that no film wants and this is for movies rated 59% or lower also known as the “Lousy Crumbles” (use Figure 10). Figure 10
  • 26. GoFobo IMC Plan 25 Another goal of this forum is to encourage audience engagement and participation by allowing the users themselves to help generate and create site content in a manner in which GoFobo can save time, money, and resources to better allocate their budget. These forums will be our most effective method for driving more website engagement, so there will be a major emphasis placed on them. This tool will take up 25% of our total budget, or $15,000. Social Media GoFobo currently has a relatively strong social media presence with Facebook having over 115,000 page likes, Twitter with more than 45,000 followers, and Instagram with more than 8,000 followers. We would like to leverage GoFobo’s social media pages to further enhance the communication tools they already have in place in order to bring more awareness. We want to utilize Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as complementary tools to advertise the launch of the communication tools within our IMC mix--loyalty program, contests/sweepstakes, and user
  • 27. GoFobo IMC Plan 26 generated content forums. The plan for this communication tool is to increase brand engagement, brand awareness and participation to push users through the AIDA funnel, and ultimately come back to GoFobo after the ticket retrieval process. Utilizing social media will also provide us another avenue to gather specific information to gage the success of our plan. These metrics include numbers such as the number of likes, number of followers, the amount of coverage, and the amount of engagement with the audience. This information will also include demographics in order to gain more detailed insight into the types of consumers we’re reaching. Using Primary Research of a survey that was provided to us by Sean from TicktBox we were able to determine that out of 1,132 respondents, 57% prefer to use Facebook compared to all other social media channels (use Figure 11). Other piece of useful information contained in the survey was that 52% of the total respondents accessed GoFobo using a Desktop and 48% are accessing the site through their mobile device (use Figure 11). Figure 11 (Survey & Results)
  • 31. GoFobo IMC Plan 30 With this information we will be able to leverage the 115,000 page likes that GoFobo currently has on Facebook to create awareness as well as spark interest and action. In order to
  • 32. GoFobo IMC Plan 31 roll out our user-generated content forum we plan on utilizing Facebook to help us create interest among users and ultimately for them to spend more time on the website. Another platform that we recommend implementing is the Snapchat Geofilters that would coincide with the location of the user. These locations would be geographic regions containing movie theaters that will show screening events for films that GoFobo promotes. The pricing for implementing a Geofilter varies depending on the what is included in the Geofilter, as well as the location you would like it to appear for Snapchat users. We will be allocating 25% or approximately $15,000 of our budget to GoFobo’s social media platforms. Loyalty Program Another tool we plan to use involves establishing a formalized loyalty program to help retain current users and incentivize them to keep coming back to our site in an effort to further drive more engagement. This loyalty program would also require its own landing page for users to sign up or register. Upon registration for this program, the user will be provided with a rewards number for tracking purposes. This rewards number will be entered at the same stage of the regular login process. This loyalty program would be based on a point system where we would essentially divide it into various tiers or levels, with three different ways for users to earn points. The first and simplest way for users to earn points will be simply by inputting their zip code and searching for an available screening. We don’t want the program to discourage users who come to the website and aren’t able to find an available screening. At the same time, because this action is so simple and can be completed numerous times without limitations, we will only offer 1 point for all searches conducted during a website visit and stayed on the website for at least 3 minutes (not 1 point per search).
  • 33. GoFobo IMC Plan 32 The second way for users to earn points is based on how many total screening events the user has been to. The more screenings the user attends, the more points that user will receive. Because the emphasis of our overall IMC plan is placed on expanding their services, only two points will be awarded for obtaining an advanced screening pass. Another way for users to earn points would be to integrate the aforementioned user generated content forums. Similar to the amount of screenings, the more a user writes posts in these forums, the more points they will be awarded. In order to place an emphasis on retaining users past the ticket retrieval process, users will receive three points for any content they post in either of the two forums. If a user utilizes all possible avenues to earn rewards points throughout the ticket retrieval process, their total point potential on a per screening basis is a minimum of 9 points. This number is subject to change depending on how many posts the user writes in the pre and post screening forums. Once a user has earned enough points to move up a level, they will qualify to choose from some sort of prize. The prizes we offer will include merchandise related to a past screening the user has been to and will also increase in value as the user moves up to the higher levels. We have set aside 4 tiers or levels--similar to medals received in athletic competitions--that users can work towards to earn their prizes from GoFobo. The first, or lowest point level, will be titled Bronze, which will require users to break the threshold of 25 points. The next level will require users to break the threshold of 50 points, and will be titled Silver. The third level will require users to reach a point total of 75, and will be titled Gold. The fourth and final, or highest, level that users will be able to reach will be titled Platinum, and will require a point total of 100 (use Figure 12). Figure 12
  • 34. GoFobo IMC Plan 33 Again, this program will comprise 25% of our annual budget with $15,000 allocated to it’s creation. Sweepstakes The next tool we plan to utilize involves the integration of more creative contests and sweepstakes to generate interest within the site. Though attempts have already been made to incorporate these tools, we’d specifically like to conduct sweepstakes once every other month. These sweepstakes would coincide with upcoming film releases where our users can essentially win prizes that consists of posters, t-shirts, or any relevant merchandise related to that specific film (use Figure 13). Figure 13
  • 35. GoFobo IMC Plan 34 We would like to strategically market our contests and/or sweepstakes relative to the upcoming films we would currently promote on the website. So for example, with Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War coming up in May, we would essentially promote our contest with official Captain America movie posters by Marvel or any collectible Captain America action figures/statues that fans and contestants can possibly win as participants in the sweepstakes. The purpose here is to further accomplish one of our primary goals of providing content beyond the RSVP and screening experience in an effort to retain our users and give them more of an incentive to keep coming back to our site. By offering users with fun and desirable prizes that these possible contestants actually want to win, we hope to encourage them to sign up for the contests and generate a greater turnout, in turn, further increasing engagement between the user and GoFobo. This would take up 19.5% of our total budget, which would amount to $11,700. SEO/SEM
  • 36. GoFobo IMC Plan 35 Last but not least, we’d like to leverage GoFobo’s already high standing in Search Engine Optimization in order to again, generate more interest and awareness to better reach their audiences. As of right now through utilizing SEO, GoFobo is currently ranked #3 on Bing under “free advanced screenings” or “free advanced screening tickets”, and pops up on the very first page of every major search engine tool on the internet (use Figure 14). Figure 14
  • 37. GoFobo IMC Plan 36 Since GoFobo has very few direct competitors in the space for advanced screenings, it will be very crucial to capitalize on that moving forward. Given GoFobo already has a relatively high standing in the SEO rankings, we feel they should not spend any additional amount than
  • 38. GoFobo IMC Plan 37 what they currently spend. This will allow GoFobo to focus more of its resources on the other components of our IMC Mix and utilize SEO in a manner in which we can again, complement and further bolster the other aspects of our IMC Mix. This would take up the least amount on our budget at 5.5%, which would be allocated at an estimated $3,300. Other Current Media Strategies Blogs: GoFobo currently writes blogs on their site. We suggest GoFobo continue this as this will in turn bring more traffic to their site when readers click on their blog. Direct Email: Utilizing GoFobo’s strong database of 4 million users will be a great way to stay “top of mind” by sending out emails to them. The Monthly Newsletter with 3 articles that go out to all 4 million users every month is also a great way for GoFobo to reach their users for free. With an average of 1,200 weekly new users, GoFobo needs to create a rich experience for these users to come back to the site and we believe direct email and the monthly newsletter can help foster that experience. Surveys: Surveys will help GoFobo better understand their users needs and how or in what direction their preferences shift toward. Aside from the current media strategies that GoFobo currently deploys, we would like to make a small adjustment to their website. In particular, we would like to tweak the search capability of current available screenings. Right now there is no option for users to search the available screenings by movie title. In order to make the available screenings more navigable there are two options we’ve identified to resolving the issue. The first would be to have them listed alphabetically below the current preview of available screenings. The second option would be to install a search bar specifically catered to searching the available screenings by movie title and also would auto-populate results based on what is being typed. We recommend
  • 39. GoFobo IMC Plan 38 implementing both options. The list would cater more to the user who are passively browsing movies, while the search bar would allow the movie enthusiasts to quickly and easily find the exact movie they had in mind when they visited the site. Specific Media Objectives/Mix The implementation of our media tactics are specific to internet based channels allowing our reach to extend throughout the United States. The media we will use to achieve our objectives include the creation of loyalty programs, implementing bi-monthly contests and sweepstakes, the addition of User Generated Content Forums, Social Media and SEO/SEM. Depending on the objectives for each target market is how we will determine which tools we will utilize for each. We will utilize all of GoFobo’s social media accounts; which include Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, in order to increase the awareness level of the company specifically to our Young Adults and Movie Enthusiasts. We want to stay “Top of Mind Awareness” with these two target markets in particular since they are the most prominent social media users. Families will also benefit from our social media because it is a channel that anyone is able to access, but referring to the content we plan to provide we will tailor our messages more towards the first two target markets mentioned. Promoting awareness as well as creating engagement with users will be throughout the calendar year (365 days) beginning June 2016 through June 2017, respectively. The funds will pay for sponsored posts in which we can choose our target markets, range, and frequencies of posted media. We chose this media tactic to increase awareness because social media is so widely used, it is able to encompass all target markets. We have allocated $3,300 which is 5.5% of our budget to SEO & SEM in order to increase consumer interest in GoFobo and the service that it provides. The company has already
  • 40. GoFobo IMC Plan 39 established dominance in terms of looking for advanced screening movie companies via search engines. This extra $3,300 will help to maintain dominance in this sector and will increase consumer interest due to its top rankings on search engine sites. SEO and SEM funded activities will also be consistent throughout the next year, beginning June 1, 2016. The creation of a loyalty program for GoFobo users will drive consumer action by providing incentive to continually visit and use the site. These incentives create interest by serving as a reminder that the service exists, as well as improve the overall consumer perception of GoFobo. 25% or $15,000 of our budget will be dedicated to this program. Along with the previous two media tactics, the loyalty program will be implemented for a year long period, beginning June 1, 2016. The strategy of creating contests and sweepstakes for GoFobo users will be implemented in order to increase the desire to visit and use the site among consumers. This adds value and gives incentive and a reason in the eyes of the consumer to keep coming back to the GoFobo site on top of the service the company provides. 19.5% of our budget, which comes out to $11,700 will be directed toward this tactic. Contests and sweepstakes will be held bi-monthly in order to attain a consistent and frequent incentive for users to continually visit and use the site. This will begin with the rest of the tactics on June 1, 2016. User generated content forums will be implemented into the GoFobo site to stimulate action from current consumers. It will increase consumer’s opinion of using the site and in turn increase the site’s visit and retention rates. These forums will be allocated the final 25% of our budget, $15,000. These closed forums will begin with the rest of the IMC plan, and be open to be accessed only by GoFobo users who proceeded to reserve and use an advanced screening ticket from the company. A forum will be created for each movie screening provided on the GoFobo
  • 41. GoFobo IMC Plan 40 site throughout the year. This will increase action of redeeming tickets as well as increase site visit time and interaction. By combining these various tactics strategically and correctly, our group has decided that these strategies will be extremely effective in achieving our media plan of generating new users and increasing website use. Our timeline is shown on Figure 15. Figure 15 Evaluation Program User-Generated Content Forum In order to evaluate the user generated forums we plan on implementing, we would like to send out monthly surveys to users in order for them to give feedback on their likes and dislikes of the forum. One of the ways that GoFobo can monitor how many users are part of the UGC is by analyzing the data on the survey of how many users are redeeming their passes as well as how many users are clicking on the link in the survey that is sent out shortly after the advanced screening. We can also use this data to see consistency of use of the forum, and how effective it
  • 42. GoFobo IMC Plan 41 is in increasing time spent on the site by consumers. Google Analytics provides real-time reports letting a person see how many active users are on the site. Social Media Metrics Moving on to our social media, we plan on measuring the effectiveness of engagement depending on what we plan on utilizing for each target market. Social media can be utilized to obtain different objectives – awareness and engagement. This includes amount of likes, mentions, posts, followers, interactions, and overall presence within each of these social media platforms. Snapchat will be able to be measured through their website once you have created a Geofilter you have the ability to see who has viewed your Geofilter as well as how many people have used it (use Figure 16). when you At the end of the IMC Campaign we will be able to document the same elements and compare them to those taken before the IMC plan was implemented in order to measure our plan’s rate of success. Figure 16
  • 43. GoFobo IMC Plan 42 Loyalty Program Metrics In terms of the Loyalty program, we will evaluate it by conducting qualitative surveys amongst our consumers, as well as looking at the analytical data to measure change in customer retention rate, customer effort score, and customer lifetime value. As far as our loyalty program goes, since one of our primary objectives is to keep customers engaged and coming back, we’d like to focus most of our efforts on measuring customer retention rate. The surveys will be presented to consumers at the end of the one year IMC program we have developed in order to get direct responses and reactions to the program. Contests/Sweepstakes Metrics We will test the participation and interest of the sweepstakes and contests one by one throughout the year. By evaluating basic data such as amount of participants and changes in new users or time spent on site after each event is held, we will be able to measure how effective
  • 44. GoFobo IMC Plan 43 these strategies were in achieving our IMC goal. Also, by monitoring and analyzing data event by event, we will be able to modify each contest and sweepstake throughout the year to achieve more and more success as the plan progresses. SEO & SEM Metrics We will be able to use analytical data from GoFobo to observe the click through rate before and after the execution of our plan which will measure the effectiveness of the slightly increased attention to SEO and SEM utilization. We will be able to see how many consumers found the site through a search engine and compare to the current data that they have. Google Adwords is also a tool that can be utilized to measure SEO. (Use Figure 17). Figure 17 References About The Walt Disney Studios. (2016). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://waltdisneystudios.com/corp/about
  • 45. GoFobo IMC Plan 44 About Us - Fandango. (2016). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.fandango.com/AboutUs.aspx Bichell, R. E. (2016, January 14). Average Age Of First-Time Moms Keeps Climbing In The U.S. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2016/01/14/462816458/average-age-of-first-time-moms-keeps-climbing-in-the-u-s By The Book: What’s Bringing Young Adult Fans to Theaters?. (2014, December 18). Retrieved April 24, 2016, from http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/by-the- book-whats-bringing-young-adult-fans-to-theaters.html Comparing Millennials to Other Generations. (2015, March 19). Retrieved April 25, 2016, from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/03/19/comparing-millennials-to-other- generations/#!15 Fetto, J. (2010, February 20). 2010 American Movie-Goer Consumer Report - Marketing Forward Blog. Retrieved April 25, 2016, from http://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-forward/2010/02/20/2010-american-movie- goer-consumer-report/ Film Clip & Still Licensing | Sony Pictures Studios. (2016). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.sonypictures.com/studios/filmclipandstilllicensing.php Free Movie Screenings - Movie Discounts - Fandango VIP. (2016). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from https://www.fandango.com/fandangovip?source=web_globalnav_join Gaille, B. (2015, April 15). 21 Fantastic Moviegoer Demographics. Retrieved April 24, 2016, from http://brandongaille.com/21-fantastic-moviegoer-demographics/
  • 46. GoFobo IMC Plan 45 Graham, C. (2014, June 3). How to Evaluate and Measure Loyalty Program Success. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://customerthink.com/how-to-evaluate-and-measure-loyalty- program-success/ IMDbPro. (2016). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from https://secure.imdb.com/signup/index.html?rf=cons_nb_hm Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next. (2010). Retrieved April 17, 2016 from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to- change.pdf On-Demand Geofilter Terms and Conditions. (2016, February 27). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from https://geofilters.snapchat.com/terms-and-conditions Parental Guidance Suggested: Movie Time is Family Fun . (2013, December 19). Retrieved April 25, 2016, from http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/parental-guidance-suggested-movie- time-is-family-fun.html POPCORN PEOPLE: PROFILES OF THE U.S. MOVIEGOER AUDIENCE. (2013, January 29). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/popcorn-people-profiles-of-the-u-s- moviegoer-audience.html Secrets to Attending Free Advanced Movie Screenings. (2014, June 25). Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.fatmovieguy.com/how-to-attend-free-advanced-movie- screenings/ Spoiler Alert: Mobile Moviegoers Are The Biggest Movie Enthusiasts. (2013, February 12). Retrieved April 25, 2016, from
  • 47. GoFobo IMC Plan 46 http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/spoiler-alert-mobile-moviegoers-are-the- biggest-movie-enthusiasts.html Stark, J. (2013, January 03). The Best Reasons for Going to the Movies Alone - Next Avenue. Retrieved April 17, 2016, from http://www.nextavenue.org/ticket-one-best-reasons- going-movies-alone/ Appendix
  • 48. GoFobo IMC Plan 47 Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4
  • 49. GoFobo IMC Plan 48 Figure 5 Figure 6
  • 50. GoFobo IMC Plan 49 Figure 7 Figure 8
  • 51. GoFobo IMC Plan 50 Figure 9
  • 52. GoFobo IMC Plan 51 Figure 10
  • 53. GoFobo IMC Plan 52 Figure 11 (Survey & Results)
  • 57. GoFobo IMC Plan 56 Figure 12
  • 58. GoFobo IMC Plan 57 Figure 13
  • 59. GoFobo IMC Plan 58 Figure 14
  • 61. GoFobo IMC Plan 60 Figure 15 Figure 16
  • 62. GoFobo IMC Plan 61 Figure 17