TGI Friday’s is helping to make movie night a bit easier with a new promotion in partnership with Fandango that gives a free movie rental from Fandango’s mobile application to customers who order $25 or more from Friday’s.

The partnership seeks to incentivize both takeout ordering and mobile movie rentals through a joint partnership. Friday’s is relying on the mobile power provided by Fandango to entice customers into making the purchase.

“Fridays believes a night in should be just as fun as a night out,” said Cindy Syracuse Vice President of Marketing Activation at TGI Fridays. “Fridays To-Go solves that meal-time dilemma. We make it easy for our guests to make time to enjoy great food and have fun with their family and friends. Our partnership with FandangoNOW is our way of spreading some holiday cheer by gifting guests with a free movie when ordering in.”

A night in
Dinner and a movie is a long-standing American tradition and Friday’s is a restaurant that prides itself on American traditions.

But sometimes traditions need to be bolstered with a modern twist.

That is why Friday’s turned to Fandango, as a company that has made stride in modernizing the movie-watching process through its strong use of mobile, to help update the dinner and a movie experience for the modern, streaming consumer.

The partnership they came up with involves offering a free movie rental from Fandango’s app, FandangoNOW, with every online order of $25 or more from Friday’s. This partnership is a win-win, offering consumers incentives both to order online from Friday’s and to familiarize themselves with Fandango’s rental service.

The promotion will last until December 21st. As the weather gets colder, Friday’s picked an opportune time to unveil this deal when consumers will be more likely to want to order in and watch a movie than to go out to dinner.

The colder months in general are a great time for brands to amp up their order from home promotions as consumers shy away from the frosty outdoors.

Some of the dishes on offer include online-exclusive items such as Everything but the Booze – a pack of all the items required to make a mixed drink minus the alcohol itself – and the “Bucket Of” option – big buckets of classic items such as wings and ribs.

Dinner and movies
Friday’s previous mobile efforts have focused more on making the in-store experience more mobile-friendly, rather than connecting the brand with suers on their mobile devices remotely.

The first of which was an initiative to bring a mobile POS to its restaurants (see story).

Later, the brand began equipping its servers with mobile tablets in order to streamline and improve the customer experience (see story).

Friday’s is counting on the symbiotic promotion between the two brands to help drive business on both ends.

Obviously, the appeal of a free movie from Fandango brings in business for Friday’s. But at the same time, Fandango benefits by having users who are not necessarily familiar with its mobile offerings try out the app for the first time – and potentially become hooked.

“We’re thrilled to team up with Fridays to bring together families and friends over great meals and great movies,” says Jason Davis, SVP and GM, Fandango Rewards. “Our new relationship offers an ideal way to celebrate the holidays with fun food and top HD selections from FandangoNOW’s extensive library of big-screen movies and next-day TV shows.”