Rev Up a Theater Opening
Santikos Theatres
Santikos operates much more than mere movie theaters. Its grand entertainment venues include full-service restaurants, lounges, meeting spaces, coffee and gelato bars, digital technology, and plush seating with ample leg room. The chain has long dominated San Antonio and is expanding into other Texas markets.
The Challenge
- Santikos opened the Silverado IMAX in the first quarter 2008. The western-themed palace was Santikos’ first in the Houston area and the region’s first all-digital movie theater.
- While the Santikos chain enjoys pervasive market and brand awareness in San Antonio, few moviegoers in the Houston area knew of the company or the Silverado.
- The Silverado IMAX is located in a developing area on the fringes of the Houston suburbs.
- Santikos’ grand opening activities in February included radio advertising in addition to community and media outreach. These efforts garnered some media coverage, but Santikos was unsatisfied with the results and particularly wanted to attract broadcast news media attention. Santikos engaged FrogDog to put on an event no one—including the local TV and radio stations—could miss.
The FrogDog Solution
- The FrogDog team brainstormed ideas that would draw the young, affluent suburban families who live near the theater.
- Focusing on the beginning of summer movie season, FrogDog built a campaign around the debut of the family friendly “Speed Racer” flick.
- FrogDog organized a charity go-cart race featuring local celebrities, leading into the movie’s opening weekend.
- To secure broadcast media coverage at a location beyond Houston’s beltway, FrogDog recruited radio personalities and an evening anchor from the local Fox affiliate as celebrity drivers. Other racers included a well-known local artist, a reigning beauty queen, and costumed Speed Racer and Trixie characters. Santikos donated $2,500 to the winning driver’s charity of choice and smaller amounts to causes selected by other participants for a total of $5,000.
- FrogDog also worked with a nearby go-cart race track, which provided go-carts and race officials free of charge to support the event’s charitable mission.
- FrogDog team members designed a track for the Silverado’s large parking lot and coordinated logistics for setting up and dismantling it in a timeframe that did not conflict with peak movie-going hours.
The Results
- The race spurred a rivalry between two sports radio personalities, who discussed the race on the air extensively. One enlisted his radio show listeners and his Houston Chronicle blog readers in selecting a charity. The sports-radio audiences correlated well with the movie’s audience and the neighborhood’s demographics.
- The Fox anchor wore a helmet camera during the race, and the footage was used as the closing “kicker” for the evening news.
- The producer for one of Houston’s most popular drive-time radio shows also raced and called in live reports from the Silverado.
- Overall, the event earned more than a million media impressions with advertising-equivalency value of more than $83,000. Coverage included a photo spread in two editions of the Houston Chronicle’s This Week community news section.
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The Silverado significantly outperformed the national average in terms of box-office gross receipts for the “Speed Racer” opening weekend.
