The Challenge
As one of Australia’s leading cinema chains, Village Cinemas sought to drive ticket sales and audience engagement for the theatrical release of the indie drama Anora. With the peak holiday movie season fast approaching, the marketing team needed to capture attention at key moments in the customer journey, converting intent into action.
The challenge? Deliver hyper-relevant messaging across the customer lifecycle - before release and while the movie was in cinemas - using data-led audience strategies to ensure strong cut-through in a competitive holiday release window.
The Solution
Village Cinemas partnered with Zitcha to launch the Anora campaign across Meta, deploying conversion-optimised ads in two key phases:
- Pre-Purchase Phase: ‘In Cinemas on Boxing Day’
- Now Showing Phase: ‘In Cinemas Now’
Using Zitcha’s platform, the team was able to manage the campaign end-to-end, with full visibility and control over audiences, placements and performance.
Key to the campaign’s success was Village’s integration with Lexer, which enabled activation of first-party data. This allowed for bespoke audience segments to be built based on previous engagement with similar film genres, ensuring messaging reached the most relevant potential moviegoers.
The Strategy
The campaign was underpinned by three core tactics:
- Conversion-Based Meta Buying: Both campaign phases were optimised for conversion objectives to maximise ticket purchase intent and drive measurable outcomes.
- Advanced Audience Segmentation: Through Lexer’s CDP integration, the marketing team created highly targeted segments focused on genre affinity and behavioural signals.
- Creative Optimisation Across Phases: Messaging evolved throughout the campaign, with a strategic shift from anticipation-led creative (‘Boxing Day Release’) to urgency-focused creative (‘In Cinemas Now’) to align with audience mindset.
The Results
The Anora campaign exceeded expectations, delivering strong performance metrics across both phases:
- Overall CTR: 10.8%
- Now Showing Phase (ICN) CTR: 12.6%
- Pre-Purchase Phase (DATE) CTR: 8.4%
The data-led approach and tailored creative drove strong engagement, with audience segments responding positively to the relevance and timing of the messaging.
What's Next
Following the success of Anora, Village Cinemas plans to expand its use of Zitcha for upcoming theatrical releases, with a focus on:
- Enhancing personalisation through more refined audience segmentation.
- Expanding omnichannel campaigns, integrating Meta with platforms like YouTube.
Improving attribution modelling to better link digital engagement with in-theatre outcomes.
