Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Sony McDonalds Emoji coupons

This is topic Sony McDonalds Emoji coupons in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=003046

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-04-2017, 12:39 AM:

Apparently every theatre who's playing Emoji during that week is expected to participate in this McDonalds coupon thing.

I've never had a coupon before where I've been told to simply issue a free ticket and that the film company won't charge me for it. Every other coupon thing I've ever done (Movie Cash, Hollywood Movie Money, that Kentucky Fried Chicken thing, etc) has always been on the terms that I give away the ticket and pay the film company for it as usual, and the promotion outfit pays me for the ticket.

This is different; I guess I'm supposed to hope that more people come to the show and buy popcorn. But I'm still going to have to pay Real D their cut on the free tickets.

When I first heard about this coupon this afternoon I thought I'll see if I can advertise that you can turn in your coupons here. But now that I know how it works, I'm not convinced that I want to make any kind of a splash about it.

I'll take them if anyone shows up with a coupon, but I'm not convinced that it's a very good deal for me.

What do you think?

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 08-04-2017, 07:44 AM:

IMDB rating: 1,5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 6%
Metascore: 12

I'd be amazed if anybody actually shows up at all. [Wink]

Why not play it in 2D and skip the RealD fees?

Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 08-04-2017, 05:16 PM:

We've never, to my knowledge had anyone show up with any "third party" pass, and I'm not sure how Real D works, but why ring any of these passholders through the till at all I f you're not expected to submit payment for them? As for the movie, we're playing it now as part of a double (& triple) feature, I'm honestly not sure it deserves quite the low ratings it's getting. It's like a lot of these animateds, for the right ages or those in the mood, it's bright colors, a couple laughs here and there, and the best part (if there's one or two movies coming after) is it's really short!

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 08-04-2017, 05:20 PM:

quote: Frank Cox
Apparently every theatre who's playing Emoji during that week is expected to participate in this McDonalds coupon thing.

No. You have the option (or at least your ownership/management does).

Sony does want to know though.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-04-2017, 05:26 PM:

When I got the email about this I asked if it is supposed to include me (since my theatre isn't currently listed on the promo website) and this is the answer that I got from the Sony lady:

quote:
They are to participate, all theatres in Canada that are holding or opening Emoji during this time are part of the promotion, we are following up with Vision to ensure they have the proper information.

So it doesn't look optional to me.

I don't think it's going to make much of a difference here anyway since we don't have a local McDonalds. I might ultimately get just one or two or no coupons at all over the course of the week.

It's the first time that I've seen an arrangement quite like this.

quote: Dave Bird
why ring any of these passholders through the till at all I f you're not expected to submit payment for them?

Because Sony expects you to do that. There's a spot on the Rentrak form that says "free passes" for every day that I enter ticket sales for one of their movies and that number is "required". I've never entered any number other than 0 into that field, though.

Also, the freebies will be consuming a pair of the Real D glasses so Real D really should be getting paid for that.

I use roll tickets here (the "admit one" things) so I'll just set up an extra roll for the freebies that week and count them that way.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-04-2017, 07:46 PM:

The time to edit my previous post has expired, so I'll have to add this as a separate post.

It occurs to me to mention that I'm probably better of as a "participating theatre" than not, even if I don't get many of these coupons, simply because it will create less friction at the box office if someone shows up with one.

I've simply never seen an arrangement quite like this particular one before.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-04-2017, 08:06 PM:

So, Real D charges for free passes, too? As in, you get dinged if an employee comes in to see a 3D feature that you are playing? It seems kind of unfair to me that they would charge you for something like that, but I don't doubt that they are doing it, either.

Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 08-04-2017, 09:09 PM:

I guess Rentrak has evolved a bit since we had any real contact with them. We used to phone in simply the Gross (including taxes). It's been a direct data transfer from our cash system for about 6 years now. Recently we've set it up to also send Box Office Reports via the "Swift Portal" which a number of studios seem to be requiring. They are apparently unable to enter manual data at their branch offices anymore and have to send it somewhere in Europe to the only computer that can still do it. I find it hilarious and odd that the entire Hollywood movie industry somehow depended on receiving raw data from our little flyspeck.....but whatever.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-04-2017, 09:39 PM:

quote: Scott Norwood
Real D charges for free passes, too? As in, you get dinged if an employee comes in to see a 3D feature that you are playing?

I assume so, though since I don't have employees the situation doesn't arise here. It doesn't seem unfair to me -- why should Real D subsidize your employee's benefit?

As for Rentrak aka Comscore, I enter my box office reports on their "Comscore Swift" webpage. I used to phone it in and then I could fax it in, but a few years back they told me to start using that webpage. I just log into it every Thursday night and enter the week's ticket sales.

I also send them an email every night with the total dollar amount of ticket sales for that day. If I don't have that email sent in before about 10pm or so, someone from there phones me to find out why.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 08-04-2017, 10:07 PM:

Frank, I just started using Swift. Since I wrote a script in my ticket DB that sends the email to Rentrak, I wanted to automate it to Swift also. Turns out you can FTP to Swift (at least in this country, but I can't imagine it being different in Canada). So now I just push a button every night and the reports get sent. Get in touch and they'll send yo the details.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 08-04-2017, 10:14 PM:

We do our Rentrak/Comscore the same way, Frank.

Re the McD's / Emoji thing;;; I got my info from my booker, who told me that participation was optional.

I suspect it probably has to be. It would surprise me that a studio could force you to let anyone in for nothing. In our case, we're also running a second feature, not necessarily from the same studio. Since the same admission (or not) pays for both features, they might have their own thoughts on the matter.

In any case, I suspect it's as others here have observed... not likely to be a big deal, one way or the other.

BTW... If you do opt in, it's not the "passes" category they want you to claim these admits on. They want you to establish a new field, called "BOGO", and put them there.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-18-2017, 12:01 AM:

I actually got six of these coupons turned in over the course of this past week.

Somewhat to my surprise, actually, since we don't have a McDonalds in town.

Slightly related: Does anyone know how to delete that BOGO field from the Rentrak thing? I created a new field on the webpage as instructed, entered the coupons along with the ticket sales, and now I have that field apparently permanently established on my ticket entry page. I can't imagine that I'll be using it again any time soon if ever, but I can't see any way to delete it now that it exists.

Posted by Rick Cohen (Member # 6140) on 08-19-2017, 01:02 AM:

While participation was optional, every theatre booked for the movie was listed as a "participating location" unless you specifically informed Sony that you did not wish to participate. We didn't hear about the promotion from our booker until the promotion was already active. We received four of the certificates. With setting up our RTS for the BOGO pass category, it was much more effort than it was worth, and I'm still not sure how we are getting reimbursed.

Rick

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-19-2017, 01:04 AM:

You're not getting reimbursed.

The deal was that you gave the ticket away and Sony didn't charge you for that ticket.

So you don't get paid anything for it.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 08-19-2017, 03:46 PM:

So Sony simply expects you to forfeit your 50%(?) of the ticket price. Are they going to allow the number of passes to be deducted before calculating the film percentage? For example, you sell 200 tickets and receive 10 passes in addition. Are they going to calculate film rental on 190 tickets?

Doesn't seem right the studio can "force" theatres to give up their share of the ticket.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-19-2017, 06:54 PM:

All I can tell you is how I did it here; whether I did it "right" is maybe another question.

I accounted for the regular (paid for) tickets in the usual manner, and added a BOGO field to the Rentrak report and entered the number of coupons received in that.

I paid Sony their percentage for the number of paid for tickets.

I paid Real D their fee for the number of paid for tickets plus the number of coupons.

Since there were only six coupons received here, it was pretty much irrelevant anyway.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 08-21-2017, 08:38 AM:

quote: Frank Cox
Slightly related: Does anyone know how to delete that BOGO field from the Rentrak thing? I created a new field on the webpage as instructed, entered the coupons along with the ticket sales, and now I have that field apparently permanently established on my ticket entry page. I can't imagine that I'll be using it again any time soon if ever, but I can't see any way to delete it now that it exists.

The basic rule of database consistency is entirely in-line with the basic rule of Hotel California: You can checkout anytime you like but you can never leave.

Maybe you can hide the field?

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-21-2017, 12:50 PM:

Perhaps that's possible. I'll look at that the next time I log into that thing on Thursday night.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-24-2017, 12:26 PM:

Apparently I did it wrong.

I just got an email from Real D stating that free admissions aren't counted in the amount to be invoiced. Which is news to me, but since I don't normally do free admissions of any kind this situation has never come up before.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 08-24-2017, 11:34 PM:

Turns out you can hide the field on the Rentrak form but you can't delete it. It just adds a new entry at the bottom of every ticket entry screen with a drop-down that has the unused field in it in case you want to use it again, I suppose.