Cos. Use Movies To Boost Mtg. Attendance

A healthcare company's veterinary division has yielded results from a "meetings and a movie" strategy to increase attendance for its annual product launches. Using movie theaters as venues and enticing attendees with sneak peaks of upcoming feature films has delivered a 40 percent return on investment, based on resulting sales increases, said the company's marketing manager.

After years of annual hotel dinner meetings to launch new products for Bayer HealthCare's Animal Health division, the company in 2004 began to notice a drop in attendance, according to Drew Mantek, marketing manager for Bayer HealthCare. The company approached Centennial, Colo.-based National CineMedia—a venture of AMC Entertainment Inc., Cinemark USA Inc. and Regal Entertainment Group—for its Cinemeetings program, which offers nearly 1,200 movie theaters as venues and satellite videoconferencing to connect multiple audiences.

Bayer has used the Cinemeetings program for three years, and in 2005 placed about 75 events with the company in separate markets. Attendance at the marketing events has surpassed the company goal of 80 percent, he said, compared with the average 30 percent to 40 percent attendance at hotel dinner meetings. Bayer in 2006 is looking to use Cinemeetings for internal corporate meetings as well, he said.

"We're looking at other types of events as well," Mantek said, "corporate communications and virtual meetings."

Bayer has strict purchasing guidelines that specify requirements for return on investment, he said. ROI is measured on incremental revenue over prior-year sales.

"We had some pretty strict ROI requirements for it and benchmarks we needed to hit to make it pay out," Mantek said. "It took some convincing, but we took a little risk and it seemed to pay out for us."

Mike Schonberger, vice president of sales and marketing for National CineMedia, said the meetings program was created to fill theaters during non-prime hours. Corporate meetings and events make up about 95 percent of business for the company, he said.

Another national account for Cinemeetings is Microsoft, which due to the program can track "to the dollar" increased software purchases in specific markets.

"They are literally utilizing north of 500 locations per year," Schonberger said. "Within each of those locations, they'll have those different groups: value-added partners in one auditorium, small business owners in another auditorium and developers in another. When you count all those business meetings, it's anywhere between 1,200 and 1,500 per year."

Cinemeetings works best for any company with a geographically distributed organization, he said. Continuing medical education events for pharmaceutical companies are also ideal for the program, he said, as satellite conferencing can facilitate question-and-answer sessions across multiple markets.

In three years, Cinemeetings rapidly has grown its customer base, he said. "We're forecasting growth that will be north of 50 percent this year, but we have average growth as high as 89 percent per year. It's been dramatic," Schonberger said.

The company also provides concessions and catering services for events and is in talks with major film studios to obtain pre-release copies of movies to lure attendees for their customers.