This design looks so cheap to me, it’s just a bunch of random covers, there is no information about the movies presented in any way, the covers are way too big and take up an inordinate amount of space and there is nothing breaking up sections, design is just so fucking dumb now, fuck mobile
rant over 😅
Well, that’s how it was for me at least. The movie theater is right in the middle of town, which is why you’re constantly passing by it anyway. I don’t actively look up the current movie lineup, but I used to always be up to date because I passed by that theater almost every day and saw the posters.
Now I’m no longer informed about the current lineup, but instead only about the absurd prices for popcorn and stuff—I can’t say that motivates me to go to the theater’s website to see what’s playing.
Like I said: I haven’t been to the theater since they took down the posters. That’s not because tickets and popcorn would be too expensive for me, but because I have no idea which movies are playing right now. I don’t go out of my way to find out myself, but I used to walk past the theater and think, “Oh, cool, movie xyy is playing—I should go see that with friends this weekend.” That effect is now gone so I don’t go to the movies anymore.
So what should be glaringly clear to you is that you are no longer the target demographic for theater attendance. That information is all relayed through the app on the phone, as are ticket sales, seating arrangements and really the purchasing of food.
I guess I’m not the target demographic either then. I don’t think I ever was really, but as a parent of teens, if I do go in, it’s likely to be a family’s worth of tickets.
Maybe you think the rest of us are a minority that doesn’t matter but it seems short sighted to disregard potential customers
I have been going to the movies for about 50 years and I never found out what was in the theater by show up and walking up to the theater. I sure didnt do it when I was taking my family there, I did it with the news paper or calling…
Starting around 1999 I looked online.
Even young people don’t have the movie theater’s app because it’s completely useless. Only people who go to the movies regularly—and are therefore already regular customers—might use such an app. Of course, there are also promotional campaigns by the operators designed to encourage people to download their useless app—but I’m pretty sure most people only do that to get the discount and then delete the app right away.
Young people, in particular, can of course be reached through social media ads and the like, but you don’t seem to realize how expensive that is. I can hardly imagine that a local movie theater—or even a chain with many local locations—could achieve a halfway decent ROAS through this or other online marketing channels.
So in my opinion, it’s simply idiotic to ignore the prime advertising space this movie theater already has—after all, it costs almost nothing to hang a few extra posters on its own building. They could even do that alongside the food ads, which would make optimal use of this free advertising space. But they don’t do that; instead, they’ve removed all the movie posters for a single screen with food ads no one cares about.
I can’t understand the reason for that. If it has to be one or the other—which isn’t necessary at all—I think movie posters are much more effective. I mean, let’s be honest: Which is more useful to potential customers? Knowing which movie is currently playing—something you notice as you walk by, regardless of your age—or an ad for a small discount on tacos or something similar, that are still very expensive even after the discount?
Oh, and just to be clear: Of course, it doesn’t matter at all whether they’re actually posters or screens displaying the movie lineup.
The point is the informational value, which, of course, exists in the real world as well, not just online.
This may also be why they overly focus on blockbusters. Without traditional means of seeing what’s playing, I’m only aware of a movie if it’s been heavily advertised. You’d think trying the cheap route would be … cheaper
Yes, that seems plausible to me. I can’t say why the movie theater near me isn’t putting up posters or any info anymore, but since I don’t know the details that led to this decision, it simply seems like an awful idea on the part of management to me.
It could be that the film distributors no longer provide the necessary promotional material, though that also seems pretty silly, since it would hardly incur any significant costs. It is also possible that there are some major players that don’t want that because it would benefit them (small companies can’t compete with big capital that is needed for online ad campaigns).
Maybe it’s also due to some city regulations.
I can’t say for sure which or any of these might be the case, but I could very well imagine that it’s due to incompetence on the part of the theater’s operators. Although this is a nationwide, I think even international chain, that doesn’t seem to me to guarantee that there’s a plausible reason. Maybe it was a cost-cutting suggestion from a completely incompetent consultant who looked at some Excel spreadsheets and came up with the idea that the labor costs for putting up posters were an expense that could be cut. That wouldn’t surprise me at all.
But anyways, I just noticed that the movie schedule at my local theater is no longer visible when you walk by. To me, that’s a loss, and I think some others might feel the same way—because while you can, of course, find information online, since this is a local offering, it seems ridiculous to me not to provide the relevant information on-site as well, especially since it could be done very, very inexpensively.