MoviePass has made major waves since dropping its price to less than $10 a month last year. The subscription theater-going service has seen a massive surge in subscribers, as movie fans are eager to see as many movies as they want for a low monthly rate. But despite this enthusiasm, there are still a lot of questions about the service going forward. How will MoviePass make money with such a cheap rate, and is the business model sustainable chief among them? Well it looks like one way MoviePass may finance its future by monetizing the data and habits of its customers.
On its surface, MoviePass might seem like an unsustainable model, with customers seeing a lot of movies while only paying the service $10 a month. But we have heard that the service intends to weather the storm of the customers they lose money on, the ones who see movies constantly and use the service to the fullest. After that, more people will sign up who ultimately don't end up going to the movies as often. This will theoretically be a much larger percentage of the subscriber base and thus offset the film fans who are going a lot. But the Washington Post reports that MoviePass does want its customers to use the service as much as possible in order to gain profitable data about consumer habits. So it sounds like the company is poising itself to make money off both customers who barely use the service and those who use it a lot.
As is usually the case nowadays, many company wants to know everything they can about you in order to tailor their products, services and advertising to get you to spend your hard earned dollars. MoviePass will be able to track moviegoers across most theaters in America, independent of chain specific tracking. The information the service gleans is valuable to the other businesses adjacent to theaters, be it restaurants or retail stores. It can tell them what demographic is seeing movies and when. The data will also be valuable to studios that can now see who is seeing what and how often. The studios may also find value in moviegoers taking a chance on smaller films with the service instead of just shelling out for blockbusters.
It is clear that MoviePass is on to something with its low pricing. The service recently hit 1.5 million subscribers. Some theaters are still not on board, but perhaps they will warm to the idea if MoviePass drives more people into the theaters. In addition to the box office being down in 2017, attendance was also down, hitting a 24-year low. With the average movie ticket price at $8.97, an all-time high, I imagine more customers will be driven to try out services like MoviePass. But to do so, it appears their information will likely be sold to other businesses so that those businesses can, in turn, better sell to them. Such is modern times.
MoviePass isn't the only game in town either. There are alternatives to MoviePass in the form of the Cinemark Movie Club and Sinemia. Whether you're a subscriber to one of these services or you get your tickets the old fashioned way, there are plenty of reasons to head to the movies this year. Check them out in our release schedule.
