Orange Wednesday is a great example of a marketing initiative adding value for mutual benefit
- The customer gets (essentially) half-price cinema tickets
- The cinema gets to use up spare capacity on what was probably the quietest day of the week (the day before the new releases)
- The brand gets the advertising, and the associations
The campaign is very popular. So popular, that I had to wait 40 minutes to get my cinema tickets last Wednesday as the crowd of people in front of people slowly moved forward. Each transaction, where the voucher number was manually recorded and the transaction was made, seemed to take an age. Surely there is a more efficient way of processing the tickets?
Am I justified in being disappointed? Or should I accept it, given the saving I made? £3.25 isn’t a great return for a 40 minute wait. I will go again, but the campaign isn’t as essential to me as it could so easily have been
sk
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wgyuri/
PS A hectic week means that the next link update has been delayed. It will probably go up on Sunday.
Filed under: Marketing | Tagged: bogof, cinema, customer service, orange wednesday |
Curiously Persistent 
I don’t think you can have any justification to be disappointed. The reason that you had to queue for 40 minutes is precisely because of the Orange Wednesday promotion existing. If the purpose is to increase publicity for Orange and for the cinema to sell more tickets, why would you expect the cinema to then reduce its financial benefits by hiring more staff? If you don’t want to queue for 40 minutes, don’t go on a Wednesday and pay the extra. Or go on a Wednesday but get there very early. I have known for several years now that if I want to benefit from the Orange Wednesday promotion, that I need to turn up at the cinema well in advance of the film.
There is no incentive for the cinema to increase its staff level only to the point where they aren’t turning away customers (e.g. waiting so long that they miss the film). But the staffing wasn’t the issue – it was the time it took to process each ticket. There must be a quicker way to move forward.
And yes, for the price of a pint I could go to a different cinema or go on a different day where queues aren’t as big
Perhaps I didn’t express it too clearly but my main point is that it is a great campaign and idea, but the execution could potentially hamper its success