Amazon’s marketing team has officially gone nuts. The online retailer, fresh from two Oscar wins for Manchester by the Sea, is now launching the movie on May 5 on its Prime Video streaming service that’s free for Amazon Prime members. Do you know what they’re doing? The entire town of Manchester-by-the-Sea in Essex County, Massachusetts, is getting a one-year Amazon Prime membership for free.
And the popcorn is free as well. At the last census, there were 5,136 people in 2,394 homes in the town of Manchester, Mass., and each of those households will get a Prime membership, but along with that comes three packs of popcorn from Amazon’s private label brand, Wickedly Prime Popcorn.
In all, the promo will cost Amazon approximately a quarter of a million dollars, but for Jeff Bezos, that’s the kind of change he’d find in between his sofa cushions. And there’s nothing charitable about it, either. It’s a marketing promotion, which means it is meant to make money.
Amazon Prime members typically spend from twice to four times what non-members do on Amazon’s online portals. That means, over the course of the next year, if even half those people receiving free Prime memberships shop for just $200 each, Amazon will more than make its money back. Besides, it will probably add to their loyal membership base that renews every year.
But even if they lose money on this deal, the PR and sheer goodwill counts for a whole lot more.
The only problem is, there’s probably 2.5 million people in Greater Manchester, UK, going: “Oi, where’s that bloody popcorn, then?” Sorry, Mancunians, Amazon’s not that generous.
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