Omniplex Cinemas had been providing a poor pre-show user experience for some time and were really failing at maximising the potential for both user attention but also additional revenue creation. The pre-show animation that was created, provided additional entertaining content for their users, gave additional advertising messages to increase spend in the lobby, but most importantly it created an entirely new form of cinema advertising that we believe we are the first to create.
Our solution for the integration and delivery of the specific instructional messaging to the user is utterly seamless and fully integrated into the visual design that is being displayed to them. Creating a full 7.1 cinematic audio experience, with a voice over that is completely tailored to what the user is experiencing visually on screen. The real ingenuity was how we created an entirely new form of cinema advertising and blended this absolutely seamlessly into the UX solution. Due to the delivery method, users are only required to use two of their senses to engage with it and as there had been no real previous utilisation of this UX moment it was greatly welcomed by Omniplex users.
We would consider the innovation aspect of our UX solution both new and also an improvement on existing methods. Predominantly as movie preshow experiences are not new, however the seamless integration of advertising into these pre shows has not been done anywhere else to our knowledge.
People respond best to stories and we really felt that this story element and just an overall narrative was really lacking from leading competitors pre show. We saw this as a major opportunity to increase user engagement and to improve on the existing tech demonstration that was typical for the majority of cinema pre shows.
The creation of an entirely new cinema ad format via virtual billboards built into the animation is an entirely new concept altogether. It provides additional pre show advertising space without having to increase the amount of exclusive ad screen time. The ads if anything become part of the feature and add to the visual interest of the experience as a whole. We like to think it could function similar to how people actively go to look at the billboards in Time Square. Not to mention some users attempt to skip the ads by arriving a few minutes late, but as this is the last thing that the user experiences before the movie, It would take some impressive timing to skip it and not miss the beginning of the movie.