Fandango’s recent acquisition of Quantum Rewards will help the company ramp up its promotional efforts to offer rewards via desktop and mobile.

Quantum Rewards provides movie ticket-related promotions and owns Hollywood Movie Money. Hollywood Movie Money is a movie currency that is accepted at more than 36,000 screens nationwide.

“Quantum Rewards has been in business for almost three decades and is the leading provider of movie ticket-related promotions worldwide,” said Kevin Shepela, vice president of business operations and business development at Fandango, Los Angeles.

“The addition of Quantum will accelerate Fandango’s existing promotional movie ticket and gift card business, and enable us to offer even more marketing solutions for studios, exhibitors and advertising partners, and help drive more movie fans into theaters,” he said.

“The biggest impact for mobile users is that they will be able to redeem many of their Hollywood Movie Money rewards on Fandango’s website and mobile apps. And, for the first time they will be able to purchase additional tickets for their friends or family who are accompanying them to the theater, which will be a great convenience.”

Movie rewards
For almost three decades, Quantum Rewards has offered movie promotions and customer loyalty programs. Past campaigns have supported movies such as Iron man 3, Man of Steel and Monsters University.

In April, Hollywood Mobie Money rolled out a campaign with Lionsgate that offered fans two tickets for $12 to see The Big Wedding. The companies promoted the offer on Web sites, social media outlets and broadcast and print advertising.

Under Quantum Rewards, Hollywood Movie Money was not accessible on mobile, so now Fandango will bring the rewards currency to the medium and increase access to movie loyalty.

The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.

According to Fandango, more than 41 million consumers visit Fandango’s Web site and mobile apps each month, so this will be a huge increase for the rewards currency.

Fandango will also increase its reach with the addition of Quantum by offering ticket promotions at more than 95 percent of movie theaters nationwide as well as many international theaters.

Additionally, consumers will be able to redeem Hollywood Movie Money rewards to purchase tickets for their friends and family in addition to themselves. This feature was not previously offered.

Mobile tickets
This acquisition will only bolster Fandango’s significant presence in mobile ticketing.

At the beginning of this year, Fandango announced that it saw its best performing year in the company’s 12-year history with a 171 percent YOY increase in mobile ticket sales (see story).

Fandango also recently rolled out a digital video series to drive mobile site and app traffic (see story).

As mobile ticketing becomes more popular, Fandango is making the right moves in terms of increasing its rewards opportunities.

For mobile ticketing and mobile commerce in general, one of the major factors that will drive the technology will be loyalty and rewards. Consumers tend to adopt mobile technology that gives them additional benefits beyond the ability to pay with mobile, so rewards is definitely the place to go.

“Mobile is hugely important to Fandango and continues to be a strong driver of traffic and ticket sales growth,” Mr. Shepela said.

“The company is about to complete its best ticket-selling summer in company history, with mobile representing 44 percent of overall ticket sales, and mobile tickets seeing a 75% year-over-year increase.”

Final Take
Rebecca Borison is editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York