Fifty Shades of Grey suits up on mobile to drive ticket sales
The premiere of Universal Pictures' film Fifty Shades of Grey was supported with a social campaign that drove users to a mobile application, which garnered hundreds of thousands of users while driving record-breaking, pre-release ticket sales through Fandango.
The campaign helped to collect the highest pre-release ticket sales of all time for an R-rated movie, which were higher than The Hunger Games and both The Hangover Part II and Part III. In regards to app engagement, the Fifty Shades app generated more than 2.7 million API calls per day, all routed through Kinvey, a backend-as-a-service provider, instead of burdening NBCUniversal?s infrastructure with a transient app.
?There were so many fans of the book that a mobile app was a natural way to extend engagement digitally and build hype/excitement for the movie premiere,? said Sravish Sridhar, founder and CEO of Kinvey, Boston. ?With the many devices used by consumers, and the vast amount apps that exist in App Stores today, an aesthetic and consistent user experience is necessary to attract ? and retain ? mass volumes of users.
?By leveraging backend services, content from the internship app was available across iOS, Android and Kindle apps, as well as optimized for seven different types of platforms,? he said. ?This streamlined development was key to saving budget and time and ultimately obtaining app users.?
Inspiration involved
Fifty Shades of Grey was a literary sensation that led to a film adaptation that has been garnering a significant amount of attention on its own.
The multi-platform experience activated multiple social initiatives across the film?s marketing campaign, and Stradella Road and Universal Pictures chose Kinvey to power the app.
The app engaged hundreds of thousands of users and was part of Universal Pictures? multi-pronged promotional program contributing to the film, achieving the highest pre-release tickets sales of any R-rated movie, according to Fandango.
As described on the iTunes App Store, The Fifty Shades of Grey Internship Program app takes users into the pristine halls of Grey Enterprises Holdings and deep into the world of its secretive CEO. Users register to become a Grey intern to complete weekly assignments, earn badges, and unlock exclusive official content related to the Fifty Shades of Grey movie.
The app was launched coincidentally with the movie trailer on July 21, 2014, and soon scaled to hundreds of thousands of users. More than 144,000 files associated with the app, which are mostly user-generated photos, are stored on Kinvey servers.
The Internship app was part of an integrated campaign, including innovative use of Twitter, Facebook and other social media to encourage users to share their accomplishments and engage their community with the Grey Industry experience.
On the backend
Therefore, Universal Pictures partnered with Stradella Road to develop a long-term digital strategy to engage movie fans and build excitement for the film?s release.
After conducting research on the brand, Stradella Road developed an ?Internship Program at Grey Enterprises? app solution, encouraging fans to become ambassadors for the film while tailoring and rewarding the messaging fans share.
Stradella Road designed the internship program and app and needed a mobile app platform that would allow it to handle the engagement features and anticipated scale requirements across several platforms. Stradella Road turned to Kinvey?s Mobile Backend as a Service solution.
Using Kinvey, Stradella Road built iOS, Android, and Kindle apps in both smartphone and tablet forms as well as a responsive Web application, which all leveraged the same backend services and allowed Stradella to streamline their content distribution and deliver a consistent user experience across all device types and sizes.
Mobile-optimized backend services for user identity, data delivery, file store, CDN, push notifications, and advanced business logic aimed to enable complex internship assignment flows to engage users and encourage sharing.
?With the proliferation of smartphones, it?s a smart move to use apps to engage their target audience,? Mr. Sridhar said. ?The ingenious in-world Internship App was a great way to immerse the fan base of Grey Enterprises, not only visually through user-generated photos, but also through original content/sneak peeks.
?The use of assignments with social media sharing was an innovative way to widen the promotion circle, by allowing fans to share accomplishments with their community/friends,? he said.
Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York
