\n
Move over, Barbenheimer\u2014Glicked is upon us. Please secure an AR-enabled Gladiator<\/em> arena popcorn bucket, or perhaps one shaped like a lantern for Wicked,<\/em> to celebrate.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s the habit that theater chains are trying to get movie fans accustomed to each time a major release rolls around.<\/p>\n
Since the pandemic upended the moviegoing business, theaters have gotten more creative with their offerings in an effort to entice ticket buyers. Accompanying upgraded seats and fancier food is a perhaps unexpected star: the specialty popcorn bucket, usually a themed, over-the-top receptacle to hold the iconic movie snack. The novelty item, which has been offered for titles like Alien: Romulus<\/em>, Mean Girls<\/em>, and Despicable Me 4<\/em>, is aimed at building out the cinema experience to create an emotional memory to encourage customers to return to the theater, according to Wanda Gierhart Fearing, chief content and marketing officer at Cinemark.<\/p>\n\u201cWe wanted our customers to have something that they could take home\u2026after the movie that would just bring that memory back,\u201d Gierhart Fearing told Marketing Brew. \u201c[So] the next time they look at it in their home, they think, \u2018Oh, the movies. I had such a great time.\u2019 And then it drives this virtuous cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n
From boring to beefed-up buckets<\/h2>\n
When Dune: Part Two <\/em>hit theaters in March 2024, a provocative novelty bucket in the sphincter-like shape of a sandworm caught the internet\u2019s attention, and it seemed a new phenomenon had been born. But novelty buckets have existed\u2014and been sold with varying degrees of success\u2014since before the suggestive sandworm took center stage, according to Rod Mason, VP of business development at Zinc Group, which has created popcorn buckets for titles like Dune: Part Two, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, <\/em>and The Super Mario Bros. Movie<\/em>.<\/p>\nAccording to Mason, Zinc began creating branded popcorn buckets in Australia in 2012 and opened its US office in 2016, but the unique snack vessels weren\u2019t an immediate stateside success. \u201cThere was a fair bit of pushback; the main objection [was] they don\u2019t fit in the drink holder,\u201d he told us.<\/p>\n
Mason credits the theater chain AMC with the current bucket craze after it took a gamble in 2019 on specially designed R2-D2 popcorn buckets from Zinc to coincide with the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker<\/em>. The theater chain \u201cdid a very significant number of these\u201d buckets, Mason said.<\/p>\nBarry Brakeville, AMC\u2019s director of corporate communication, said in an email that the movie-theater chain \u201cdidn\u2019t know for sure if moviegoers would really want them.\u201d But they did: \u201cAs it turns out,\u201d he said, \u201cthe R2-D2 vessels sold out at AMC locations around the country on opening night.\u201d (AMC declined to share exactly how many were sold.)<\/p>\n
Since then, Brakeville said, AMC has worked to make standout snack vessels part of the theater chain\u2019s long-term product strategy, with a focus on being \u201cnew, different, unique, must-have and super cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many businesses tied to the movies, the pandemic slowed the popcorn-bucket business down, and theaters only started ramping up their popcorn-bucket offerings once there was renewed interest in coming back to the theater, Mason said. After the Dune: Part Two<\/em> bucket took off on social media, he said, Zinc received \u201ca tidal wave\u201d of interest.<\/p>\n\n
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Part of the appeal of a novelty popcorn bucket, at least in the case of Dune: Part Two, <\/em>was the fact that its distinct design quickly took on a life of its own, inspiring everything from memes about NSFW alternative uses for the bucket to an SNL sketch immortalizing its impact. Mason even recalled being told a story about an AMC consumer who bought 75 buckets at once, presumably to participate in a resale market that\u2019s asked for as much as $805 for the limited-edition sandworm.<\/p>\nExecutives at theater chains also credit social media for the popcorn bucket\u2019s popularity. \u201cWe work with the studios now because the studios have seen on social media\u2026how excited everyone\u2019s getting about it,\u201d Gierhart Fearing said. \u201cSo now when you talk to those presidents of marketing and all the studios, they\u2019re looking at movie merchandise as another beat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buttered-up returns<\/h2>\n
As both theater and customer demand for popcorn buckets grow, it\u2019s opening up another stream of revenue to theaters, according to Gierhart Fearing.<\/p>\n
Moana 2<\/em>, which is being released later this month, features several exclusive popcorn buckets at major US theater chains. The Cinemark bucket is designed to look like a roaring wave, with figurines of Moana, Heihei, Maui\u2019s fishhook, and Pua flanking the perimeter.<\/p>\n\u201cWe had The Rock and some other talents from Moana<\/em> post about, \u2018Here\u2019s the Cinemark-exclusive bucket,\u2019 Gierhart Fearing said, \u201cand literally, we have 275,000 views just on Instagram.\u201d<\/p>\nPopcorn buckets have been so popular that Cinemark has begun selling the buckets, as well as other movie-related merchandise on a dedicated e-commerce website to better meet demand, Gierhart Fearing told us. \u201cIt\u2019s starting to be a business driver,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Beyond sales of snack receptacles themselves, she said it could also help drive further interest in the movies overall.<\/p>\n
Customers are \u201cstarting to remember experiences,\u201d Gierhart Fearing said. \u201cIt\u2019s much better than sitting at home and watching a movie on your small screen. You\u2019re going to come in and have a full, engaging experience and get to take a little piece of it home after you\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pressure to outdo<\/h2>\n
As specialty popcorn buckets grow in popularity, it\u2019s presenting a new challenge for designers: The more attention the containers garner, the more pressure designers feel to outdo the previous iteration, Zinc\u2019s global creative director, Marcus Gonzalez, told Marketing Brew.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe challenge is to come up with as many ideas of the bespoke stuff, the custom stuff, as possible,\u201d Gonzalez said, adding that Zinc may develop up to 50 different ideas for a single project. \u201cYou don\u2019t necessarily want to repeat your hits as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
But when a bucket takes off, it can really <\/em>take off\u2014which has allowed theaters and designers to work with more price elasticity when creating and selling the buckets, Mason told us.<\/p>\n\u201cIf we make something that\u2019s cool enough,\u201d he said, \u201cpeople will buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Move over, Barbenheimer\u2014Glicked is upon us. Please secure an AR-enabled Gladiator arena popcorn bucket, or perhaps one shaped like a lantern for Wicked, to celebrate. That\u2019s the habit that theater chains are trying to get movie fans accustomed to each time a major release rolls around. Since the pandemic upended the moviegoing business, theaters have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing"},"yoast_head":"\n
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