In the fragmented entertainment landscape, it’s more important than ever for brands to grab consumers’ attention and build meaningful relationships—relationships that not only add value and convenience to the customer experience, but also drive business objectives. But today’s ever-changing consumer behaviors (e.g., multi-screen usage and binge watching) make building these relationships exceptionally difficult—as does consumers’ ability to access an endless array of entertainment options available via scores of content providers.
While this has empowered the consumer, the choices can be overwhelming, leaving viewers unsure of how to get the content they want, when they want it. At the same time, consumers’ expectations are also higher. They’re seeking brands that understand them and can help them navigate the content jungle to make their busy lives easier.
Redbox is at the forefront of this battle for entertainment consumer mindshare—a balance between content and curation. We had more new release movie and video game transactions last year than any other distributor combined, digital or physical.
So, to remain competitive we’ve increased efforts to leverage new technologies and digital platforms that deliver actionable, personalized content to our 40 million customers nationwide. By embracing these technologies, including mobile apps and notifications along with big data, we’re simplifying the consumer experience and decluttering their content options to make entertainment choices easier. We’re focused on making improvements across channels to provide relevant, customized content when and where consumers are making their movie and game decisions, whether on a computer, mobile device, or at the Redbox kiosk. Here’s a glimpse of what we mean.
Driving convenience through mobile
Given the significant Redbox footprint in mobile—more than 6.8 million text and 20 million push notification opt-ins—we’re focused on the mobile consumer. Recent efforts include a responsive website redesign to better serve the massive growth in mobile devices and new push notifications that deliver content specifically tailored to users’ interests when they need it. Other technology improvements seek to make our consumers’ lives easier, such as new title notifications with reserve title buttons built in, making reservations as simple as a single click or tap.
The Redbox app is yet another example of how we’re leveraging technology to improve the customer experience. The app contains a tutorial to help onboard new customers and includes features such as finding the nearest kiosks and the ability to browse and reserve content in their local kiosk. Since we sent our first app notifications in 2012 Redbox’s app user base has doubled, accounting for more than half of our online traffic.
Facilitating multichannel engagement
Currently, Redbox maintains more than 90 million individual customer touchpoints, across email, mobile, social, Web, text, and our loyalty program. Besides rolling out improvements to utility, we’re always looking for new ways to engage with fans in fun ways; for example, by offering special benefits for loyal users and regular promotions, games, contests, and partnerships. As a testament to that engagement, Redbox customers have submitted more than 15 million movie ratings over the last year.
But what’s most exciting for the business is seeing that our network has directly translated into greater engagement with the brand and moved consumers to explore our new offerings. Thanks to our improvements, when Redbox promotes a game to a movie customer, upwards of 40,000 movie customers make a decision to try a game from Redbox for the first time.
Improving at every touch point
By looking for consistent ways to improve experiences across our touchpoints—online, on our mobile apps, and at the box—we ensure each and every experience with Redbox is efficient, useful, and personalized.
About the author:
As the VP of digital marketing at Redbox, Mike Wokosin’s responsibilities span the omni-channel landscape (including website, email, text, mobile apps, paid media, and social) and are driven by a robust marketing analytics and CRM team that specializes in creating personalized experiences across more than 90 million digital touch points. Prior to Redbox, Mike held digital leadership positions at Warner Bros and NBCUniversal where he built global digital marketing teams, initiated social business programs that grew to over 150 million fans, and developed strategies for the transition from physical to digital content delivery.
