Universal Pictures teamed up with Fandango during Super Bowl XLVI to engage football fans with an interactive TV ad that also promoted Fandango’s popular mobile ticketing applications.

Universal Pictures ran a new trailer spot for its upcoming summer action-adventure film “Battleship.” The end of the spot featured a tag directing viewers to Fandango’s mobile apps, as well as its Web site http://www.fandango.com/battleship.

“It’s rare to see such extensive promotion across our site and mobile apps, but this was a rare opportunity for us to build a direct connection between a Super Bowl movie ad and engaged moviegoers,” said Harry Medved, spokesman for Fandango.

“Fandango has always been focused on creating excitement for upcoming movies and advance ticket sales,” he said. “By featuring a ‘call to action’ link on a hotly-anticipated Super Bowl ad, we’re not only helping start a conversation about movies but also encouraging film fans to take action and sign up for advance notification of ticket sales and showtimes.”

Universal Studios, a subsidiary of NBC Universal, is one of the six major American movie studios. Its main motion picture production/distribution arm is called Universal Pictures.

Fandango entertains and informs consumers with reviews, commentary and trailers, and offers the ability to quickly select a film, plan where and when to see it, and conveniently buy tickets in advance with mobile ticket redemption capability at more than a thousand screens.

Mobile promotion
The 15-second Battleship-themed Fandango promotion ran during the pre-game hours of the Super Bowl.

The 15-second spots alerted viewers that a “battle is coming.”

The commercials also had instructions on how users could sign up for a FanAlert and enter for a chance to win five years’ worth of free movie tickets.

According to fandango, this is the first time the company has partnered with a major movie studio in an on-air trailer spot to directly boost advanced ticket sales.

To get the word out about the Super Bowl ad, Fandango used social media outreach to engage its 1 million-plus Facebook and Twitter fans.

The company also promoted the campaign across its site and its mobile apps.

Mobile ticketing
Fandango has been seeing a lot of success with its mobile applications and mobile ticket sales.

Last year, Mobile proved to be a key moviegoer choice with Fandango generating 20 percent of its summer movie tickets sales from the company’s mobile applications and optimized-site.

According to the company, Fandango set the record for the most mobile movie tickets sold during a summer movie season. Additionally, the company sold more mobile tickets for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” than it has for any other film (see story).

Earlier this year, Fandango claimed that 50 percent of its movie fans are using its mobile ticketing after rolling out the program last year.

Fandango’s mobile ticketing is available theaters owned by Regal Entertainment Group, Hollywood Theaters and Reading Cinemas  in the United States. The quick growth of the program can be attributed to Fandango’s surge in mobile ticket sales in 2011, claiming that the company saw a 73 percent year-to-year increase in mobile ticket sales in 2011 (see story).

“We look forward to supporting all of our studio partners with on-air FanAlert promotional opportunities on more films in the future,” Mr. Medved said.”

Final Take
Universal’s Battleship Super Bowl spot