It doesn’t matter what type of industry you are in — you want your customers to come back over and over again. It is much easier to hang on to a returning customer than court a new one. After all, every new customer comes with a substantial price tag. The simplest ways to get them to come back for more are reward programmes and membership discounts. And if you are the largest movie theatre chain, you can well afford a subscription scheme to make them feel appreciated, or, better still, make them feel like celebrities as they watch the latest blockbuster before everyone else.
Enter Passport. After its pilot run in October last year, PVR INOX reintroduced its Passport offering with a few tweaks. Passport 2.0 is priced at Rs 349, covers four weekday cinema visits a month, and will be open to the first 50,000 subscribers. In its pilot phase, it offered 10 weekday movies a month at Rs 699 and was open to the first 20,000 customers. The chain is also offering customers a three-month subscription at Rs 1,047, with complimentary F&B vouchers worth Rs 350.
But why bother? After a dry spell in 2021 and 2022, theatres needed that one thing that would turn the tide. Big-bang releases like Pathan, Oppenheimer and Gadar 2 in 2023 came as a big relief. Recent releases like Fighter, Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya and Article 370 have performed well with box office collections (net) of `3.6 billion (as per Elara Capital estimates). With all this, the Hindi box office is expected to grow 26% YoY in Q4FY24.
For its part, PVR INOX needs to keep the momentum going.
The thing is, the occupancy rates in cinemas are higher for films with A-list stars or Hollywood blockbusters and it is only on weekends that cinemas see occupancy up to 70%. Small budget flicks haven’t been successful in getting people to step out of homes. Says Chandrasekhar Mantha, partner, media and entertainment leader at Deloitte India, “Typically, from Mondays to Thursdays, the occupancy is between 15% and 30%.” Also, OTT platforms have impacted all forms of entertainment, including cinema, because of their affordability.
Weekday value plans by cinema chains are great for movie buffs and could help boost occupancy levels, but they may not be a game changer. “Cinema firms will need to focus on two things specifically. First is engagement with the audience, and the second is offering corporate deals and bulk bookings during weekdays,” Mantha says.
For now, PVR INOX is going all out to make its Passport as compelling as the 2023 blockbusters.
Says Gautam Dutta, co-CEO of PVR INOX, “One important feedback we received in the first phase was that most customers watched four to five movies each month, and many didn’t avail of all 10 visits that the pass offered. So, we decided to bring down the pricing and the number of cinema visits too. The key objective is to have more people walk into our cinemas more often on weekdays. ”
The brand will not increase the subscriptions on offer because the idea is to generate “a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out)”. A larger number of subscribers also allow the firm to understand consumer behaviour across markets. This time around, half the subscriptions are reserved for southern markets.
Moving forward, PVR INOX may consider a possible seven-day programme or even a monthly subscription plan that covers weekdays and weekends. The new offerings are a few quarters away though.