By CultureBanx Team
- 70% of black adults use Facebook
- AMC set admissions records at 23% of its locations during Black Panther’s opening weekend
AMC (AMC -2.51%) wants to tap into Facebook’s (FB +0.46%) largest user group to sell movie tickets. The deal will allow users to purchase their tickets directly through the social media site. Due to the recent popularity of movies with black storylines or a black main lead character, could this AMC-Facebook partnership help keep the movie chain afloat?
Why This Matters: AMC shares have taken a beating down more than 20% in the past year due to a lackluster summer in 2017. They are in need of a new strategy and becoming easily accessible on social may be the answer. Primarily because black people are the most prolific group of social media users and tend to lead the trends shaping the landscape. Pew research found 70% of black adults use Facebook far outpacing any other ethnic group.
The social media platform already has agreements with e-ticketing services Fandango and Atom Tickets. However, for Facebook this is the first time they are directly partnering with a movie theater chain. Through this deal users who purchase tickets via the platform will have their online ticketing fees waived.
So for AMC the proof is already in the pudding with this new deal, if we look at Atom’s e-ticket sales for Black Panther they reported a company record. The movie chain wants to see similar success with its online sales. Nearly 23% of the chain’s U.S. locations set new admissions revenue records during opening weekend for Black Panther, according to Deadline. “We know people already use Facebook to find movies to see in theaters, and purchase tickets to them,” said Swapna Joshi, Facebook’s product manager for movie ticketing in a statement.
Situational Awareness: Large format movie chain Imax (IMAX -0.22%) is also having a record setting year due in part to Black Panther. The company made more than, $40M from the film. It will be interesting to see if AMC competitors Imax and Cinemark (CNK -1.20%) attempt to cut a similar deal with Facebook in efforts to boosts their e-ticket sales.
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