Montpeliers launches Fringe Festival Cocktail Club with Blackbx

Blackbx, the marketing analytics start-up, and Montpeliers, the Scottish bar, restaurant and hotel group, has announced the launch of a unique digital marketing promotion for the Fringe festival. Montpeliers is aiming to sell more than 25,000 cocktails over the course of the Fringe via its “Cocktail Club”, which offers wristband holders £4 cocktails in all seven of its venues during the Fringe – an event which double’s the city’s population each year. Montpeliers hopes the promotion will make its venues the preferred destination for visitors amid intense competition for nightlife. By reaching potential customers with a digital promotion sent to their phones, Montpeliers also wants to limit the number of paper fliers used by its venues, which are often ignored and add to the huge litter problem caused by the Fringe.

The Cocktail Club is being promoted to customers via Blackbx’s in venue promotional tool “Wi-Fi Stories”, with Icelantic IT Support facilitating the introduction between Blackbx and Montpeliers. Wi-Fi Stories displays a venue’s chosen landing page or video on a customer’s device when they arrive in venue, in this case details of the Fringe Cocktail Club. The digital promotion was designed to boost wristband awareness and sales, while helping Montpeliers monitor the success of the campaign with detailed campaign analytics.

“We find in-venue promotions a lot more successful and cost effective than advertising, and Blackbx has helped to revolutionised how we do this,” said Stephanie Bowman, brand marketing manager at Montpeliers. “During the Fringe, the streets are littered with ignored fliers from pubs, bars and clubs, but we’re reaching customers first on their phones. The majority of people who comes into our venues have a phone and most want to connect to Wi-Fi to get online and post photos to social media. Wi-Fi Stories is a great way to increase awareness for promotions like this, especially during the Fringe which although it’s one off the busiest seasons, you still have to fight for customers. We’ve learnt that promotions must be seen four or five times before people really take notice, and BLACKBX is a powerful in venue channel that didn’t exist until now.”

“The Fringe Festival completely transforms Edinburgh. It is the single most important and competitive period of the year for any bar, club or pub in the city,” said Patrick Clover, Blackbx founder and CEO. “There are thousands of acts, events and venues, all offering something different. Bars have got to do all they can to stand out from the crowd and reach potential customers directly, and we think Wi-Fi Stories is the perfect tool for that.”