The answers to those questions may prove critical when Minnesota jurists consider a lawsuit in Minnesota lobbed at the AMC theater chain.

Andria Addison has alleged in a complaint just filed that AMC violated a federal text spam law. Addison is seeking class action status on the case.

“As part of their effort to promote business, defendants engaged in an especially aggressive and deleterious form of marketing: the transmission of unauthorized advertisements, in the form of ‘text message’ calls to the cellular telephones of consumers throughout the nation,” states the complaint, as reported by MediaPost.

Addison was upset when the chain sent her an unsolicited coupon via text in late April. The phone message may have been sent to all consumers enrolled in AMC’s “stubs” program. Addison admits she enrolled in “stubs” in 2012, but says she allowed her membership to lapse within a year.

“Her lawsuit alleges that transmitting the message violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits companies from using automated dialers to send text ads to consumers without their written permission,” notes MediaPost. “Addison also accuses the Leawood, Kansas-based theater chain of violating the anti-spam law with a mobile marketing campaign that involved offering consumers incentives — like a $1 soda coupon — in exchange for their cell phone numbers.”

SMS efforts have been under fire in recent years. Most firms say they do not rely on automated dialers, but work from generated lists of consumers who have agreed to receive notifications of various sorts.

The post Not All Popcorn and Skittles in Theater Biz: AMC Chain Accused of Text Spam Violations appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Mobiquity Technologies, a location-based mobile marketing Bluetooth network, is once again working with Lionsgate to promote it’s upcoming film, Divergent.

Lionsgate recently signed on with Mobiquity for the fourth time, after successful campaigns to drive ticket sales for three previous films.

And this time around the marketing efforts planned, we’re told, will be focused largely on the third-screen marketing efforts.

“Running now through the March 21st Premier of Divergent, Mobiquity Networks will drive mobile awareness of the movie using its mall-based proximity network to deliver rich digital content via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to shoppers,” a statement provided to MMW reads.

Research has shown that 44 percent of consumers trust trailers “a lot” when deciding whether to see a movie.  Consumers trust trailers more than recommendations from friends and family, TV ads and Critics Reviews.1 With this in mind, Lionsgate’s mobile marketing campaign will offer consumers that opt-in an official, made-for-mobile Divergent movie trailer and an automatic calendar reminder.  The automatic calendar reminder will prompt consumers to purchase tickets on the opening day of Divergent.

“We’re thrilled for the opportunity to build on the success of our past campaigns with Lionsgate and promote it’s much anticipated upcoming movie, Divergent,” says Sean Trepeta, president of Mobiquity Networks. “Reaching consumers while they’re actively shopping and receptive to actionable content, combined with the influence of the movie trailer that is delivered directly to their mobile device, as well as the follow-up reminder on opening day is a powerful combination that will drive ticket sales.”

The post Mobile Marketing Company Tapped for New Lionsgate Film appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.

Renting movies at the local supermarket may cost you next to nothing nowadays, and you get full TV-sized screen viewing privileges. But say you want to watch last years Oscar-winner while getting your cardio done at the gym. There’s now an app for that.

The mobile entertainment startup just launched its Mobile Movies site, which allows users to stream full-length movies on their iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Windows Mobile devices.

Facing stiff competition from Apple (which lets users sync their iTunes movie downloads to their mobile devices), it’s unclear if iPhone users will care for the convenience of streaming versus syncing. mSpot is betting that letting users start streaming their movies in real time (no downloading required) will help differentiate itself from Apple and other offerings.

Rumors that Netflix and Hulu are planning to launch mobile movie apps may also make it hard for mSpot to gain traction, which is why it’s extremely important that they get themselves known – and downloaded – as fast as their videos supposedly start streaming. They already have already taken the leap from working on Sprint-only devices to now being carrier agnostic (well, they at least work on the four major carriers in the US.)

For $4.99 each, you can rent an individual movie, or app users can subscribe for a monthly membership allowing four movie downloads at a rate of $9.99 per month (higher-priced subscriptions for more movies are also available.)

I wonder if that price could be reduced by selling mobile ad space, especially upcoming film previews at the start of ones mobile film viewing. The user paying $4.99 to download one film to their phone is someone with money to spend on media, and there’s a lot of potential marketing that could be done in exchange for free downloads — ie, sponsor a free film download and promote your media-related company in the least obtrusive way possible in your sm screen all movie.

mSpot has scored deals with Paramount, Universal and The Weinstein Company to stream the flicks on mobile devices. At launch, they have 350 movies available to stream. mSpot is a mobile entertainment company that delivers music, movies, radio and TV to more than six million mobile customers across 10 wireless carriers.

The post mSpot: Your New Mobile Movie Spot? appeared first on Mobile Marketing Watch.