Friday, July 26, 2013

Texting In Movies

Last year I saw a number on nonprofit messages appear prior to a movie previews being shown at the theater.  This year, not so much.

I saw the inner workings of one campaign two years ago that had a cute message ask the audience to consider giving.  Then it said, "hurry up and turn your phone off"in order to recognize the fact that consumers of the message were in a theater.

The message wasn't effective.  It didn't produce meaningful results in terms of gifts coming in.  The solicitation didn't pay for itself, not even close.

My guess is that this is a behavioral issue that we won't change.  People aren't in the mode of making a gift when they are sitting down for two hours of escape.  In addition, the public perception is largely stuck in the mindset that they are being sneaky with their phone in the theater.  To try to get them to take it out and use it quickly before the previews start runs counter to the dominant message, even though half the theater goers are on their phones during that time.

Great thought, good experiment, looks like it just didn't work for anyone.

No comments:

Post a Comment