How do you motivate your underlings?

If you are Darth Vader, you choke them to death.

If you are Cardlytics, an Atlanta-based data analytics and digital advertising company, you try something a bit more encouraging: You take them all to the movies.

Specifically, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." (The AJC's Melissa Ruggieri offers a spoiler-free review of the new movie here.)

The company is taking all 220 employees to the hotly awaited premiere on Friday morning. It’s reserving every seat of a 9 a.m. showing at Regal Cinemas Hollywood 24 in Chamblee.

Cardlytics is full of fanboys and fangirls who are especially stoked for this outing. Their Ponce City Market headquarters is packed with Star Wars memorabilia. Yoda and R2D2 greet visitors in the lobby. A conference room is emblazoned with a humongous image of the Death Star.

To get in the mood, employees have been watching in-office screenings of the first six movies in the weeks leading up to Episode VII. “It was great hearing the theme song at 6 p.m. every night coming from the Death Star (our company stand-up area),” wrote chief marketing officer, Dani Cushion, in an email.

“There has been a lot of buzz around the office this week with a fair bit of costume planning,” she wrote. “My colleague on the legal team was Googling ‘last-minute Star Wars costumes’ this morning and now has his Bathrobe Jedi get-up all planned out.”

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