Movies and popcorn are as natural a combination as… well, movie theaters and sticky floors. Diamond Foods’ PopSecret popcorn brand, which has cultivated a connection with film in the past, has just launched a new Movie Night Maker utility on its Web site to enable users to pick a flick and invite their friends over via e-mail or Facebook.
Visitors are presented on the home page with the Movie Night Maker, which asks them to use three scrolling menus to select the movie occasion (from “Rainy Day” and “Sleepover” to “Break-up” and “Fright Night”), the audience, and the mood they want to establish (from “sentimental’ and “silly” to “rebellious” and “bummed”).
With those parameters set, users can click “Get Poppin’” and be served up five popular movie selections that fit their needs, courtesy of a movie recommendation engine from platform Jinni.com, which also provides a standard search box on the site. The five appear as thumbnails; scrolling over each one reveals a link to a trailer, movie info and viewer ratings from IMdB.com; a “More like this” choice from Jinni; or the ability to buy the movie by clicking through to Amazon.com.
Once they’ve found a movie that suits their needs, users can set a date and time for their movie night and send out invitations from the site, either to their Facebook friends using Facebook Connect or via e-mail.
Finally, when all the invitations have gone out, the Web site also offers a utility that lets party runners find the nearest store that sells PopSecret, allowing them to search by ZIP code and to set the PopSecret product they want and the distance they’re willing to travel from that code base. The site also links to product descriptions for PopSecret’s numerous available varieties.
“To make this [Move Night Maker] happen, we took the bold step of bringing together three movie content providers,” PopSecret marketing director Andy Allcock said in a release. “To further enhance PopSecret’s role as the catalyst to a perfect in-home movie experience, we worked to create user-friendly tool that allows customers to select a movie based on the occasion, their mood and who will be watching.”
The new site is being promoted with a “Hollywood VIP” sweepstakes and instant-win game. Until April 30, visitors can enter to win a grand prize of a trip for two to Hollywood, a tour of Warner Bros. Studios and $5,500 in spending money, along with a Blu-Ray disc player and a selection of DVDs. They can also choose to answer a few movie-related questions to compete in a daily instant-win game for a free DVD and two 3-count boxes of PopSecret. Participating in the instant win game earns a visitor another entry to the sweepstakes; so does referring friends, to a limit of five.
The Hollywood VIP sweepstakes is being promoted via in-store marketing, online ads, and with media outreach efforts. The contest is managed by PrizeLogic.
PopSecret, which offers several product varieties called “Movie Theater Butter, has long stressed its links to movie entertainment. In recent months the brand unveiled two animated TV spots from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners featuring characters called “The Kernels” who watch favorite movies at home. One of those spots, built around “Batman: The Dark Knight”, has garnered 32,000 views on YouTube since last December.
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