Making Movies painful

Hoyts is one of the major cinema chains in Australia & New Zealand.  I've been sitting in their cinemas since I was a kid and intermissions still existed.  They form a huge part of some of my earliest cinema-going memories and helped fuel my ever growing passion for movies.

But I have a big problem with their website.

I dread every time I need to check a session time for one of their cinemas.  The navigation is painful, the site is completely cluttered, it doesn't use any type of smarts or autodetect, it ignores my profile information and the mobile site is next to impossible to find.  Yes, I'm going on a bit but let me qualify this a little more.

Firstly,lets talk about browser detection.  The design of the main site is the most mobile un-friendly site I've visited for a long time.  Surprising for a site that you'd think would have a lot of mobile traffic with people checking session times for a quick last minute decision to go see a movie.  There is a mobile site but good luck finding it.  Which brings me to my point - why do I have to go find the mobile site myself?  Why doesn't the site direct me to it automatically?  Who knows...

Next there's the fact that we're urged to 'buy tickets' wherever you look.  Now I know that selling tickets is almost the cinemas's number one reason for being (ripping you blind at the candy bar is their primary one), but do we need to have it shoved down our throats everywhere?  How about a softer sell?  How about 'session times' leading into a purchase funnel?

Correct me if I'm jumping to wild conclusions but I'm suspecting that most people that visit a cinema's website is to see what's on, when it's showing at their chosen location and finally, to buy tickets.  In that order.

So why flip the whole thing around?  Why make it hard for me to get to what I want?  I know where my local cinema is, I know what I want to see and I prefer to buy my tickets in person.  Just tell me when it's on please.  The irony is that the links to Bing in both the nav section and in the big ad sitting on the site both give you exactly what you want with quick well formed search string.  Session times in an easy to read format for my local cinema - heaven forbid.

I really hate it when I register on a site but every time I go there, I have to introduce myself all over again.  It's like a visit to old relative with alzheimers' - It's stuck in the past, technologically retarded and with no idea about who you are or why you're there.

To the point, how many people visit the site undecided about where they want to watch the movie?  I mean there's not exactly a cinema on every street corner.  You go to the Hoyts website pretty much knowing where your local screens are.

But the site has no idea.  And why should it really?  Well for a few reasons actually.  Firstly, it should know where I am and recommend my closest venue.  Secondly, if I've bought online before, this should be even easier for them to suggest.  Lastly, and more annoyingly, because I'm a Movie Club member!  They not only know where I live, but which cinemas I go to and what I see.  They even ask me for my preferred cinema!

Like sitting near a loud talker.  Like a mobile going off.  Like the frozen Coke machine being out of order.  Like not being able to open the choc-top pack (and having to deal with there being no banana flavour as advertised). ... You've failed me Hoyts.  :(

Of flying people and colourful things

Lately I've noticed a growing trend in TV advertising towards featuring people flying around in slow motion.  Throw in some motion blur, or even better, colour splashes of some sort and you seem to be on a winner.

Try to resist the urge to fill or empty yourself during the next ad break and pay attention to just how many times you see this type of creative.  The flying people thing seems to work for selling everything from cars to perfume,  televisions and clothing.

To date, every one I've seen of this type has been pretty clear in what it's advertising. Except for this latest effort for Van Heusen.  Check it out and let me know if you can figure out what they're flogging...  good luck.



BTW, their website doesn't make it any clearer - mainly cause most of us already know what these guys are famous for. Is this a clever marketing tactic or a massive oversight? There's a fine line between genius and... you know.

The funnier side of politics...

As Australia goes to the polls, I'm reminded of this gem from a few years back.  Sure George W was a bit of a joke, but I don't think anyone could ever really accuse him of being boring.  I think our own pollies could do with a speechalist of their own - just after they get a personality implant ;)

Aussie election goes social - but still isn't interesting

Australians are getting ready to go to the polls to decide who gets to call the shots for the next few years.

In the past few weeks we've been bombarded with political ads and the requisite debates by what has to be the dryest, stiffest and most boring set of politicians I've ever heard.  (I thank the powers that be that Gruen Nation keeps us awake throughout the process).

This time around, both major parties have taken a leaf out of the Obama campaign book and embraced social networking as part of the campaign strategy, so I thought I'd take a quick look at what they've done.

The incumbent ALP has integrated a custom built platform into its website that provides a range of tools to help visitors rank, comment and share information throughout the site.  However, there is a lack of ability to be able to share any content directly from the home page as we'd normally expect.

The Labor Connect feature is a walled community (built by a social networking software provider, Community Engine) where you can form groups, connect with local representatives and chat to other community members.  It doesn't seem to enable connectivity to other networks such as Facebook.  The things that I don't like about this feature is that it firstly keeps the community locked away and in doing so, puts up a barrier to participation - why do users have to register and provide so much information just to collaborate?  Annoying.

The Liberal Party site has a very similar approach minus the 'Connect' type tool.  In what I think is a  slightly more subtle implementation of social tools, their site keeps all the collaboration on the top layer and not hidden away in a private network.  They connect with Facebook well and unlike their opponents, have the ubiquitous 'Like' button.  It also has a cleaner feel and appears a little less cluttered.  A reflection of their policies perhaps?  Who am I to say?

I think at the end of the day, even though the ALP has put in place what is probably a first in Australian politics with their custom community feature - my vote goes to the Liberals and their softer, more familiar and more accessible implementation.

Remember kids, there's nothing social in a walled community.

Old Spice Case Study

Here's a great video that shows the results of the fantastic Old Spice Guy campaign. At the end of the vid there's a bunch of interesting stats on site visitation and views - but the most important at the end of the day is the whole point of the exercise; the massive increase in sales over the previous periods.



Check it out.  This post is now diamonds!

Google Wave Wipes out

Funny how things go - a year ago Google Wave was being touted as the next big... something in collaboration, instant messaging, twitter and pretty much everything else you could think of.

Well I, like many others, always doubted exactly what it actually was and what practical use it had.  Some found it useful as a collaboration tool but it seems that a bunch of Aussie comedians and a group of Google employees does not a market make.

So it's no real surprise that it was announced yesterday by the Google VP of Operations (and Google Fellow no-less??!!) that Wave is to go the way of the dodo.

"Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects."

Sorta good to see that even the big boys can admit that not everything they touch turns to gold.

Where is spam originating? - Google Postini

Google Postini has a great feature that shows you in real time where spam messages are being born.  Each red dot on this map shows where spam messages are originating in real time. Saturated areas show high concentrations of malicious IPs. 

The surprising thing is that countries with spam legislation in place like the USA and Australia (where penalties are in the hundreds of thousands and up to the millions for repeat offenders) are still generating spam.  But the most surprising aspect is the fact that France, Spain, Brazil and the UK are still major spam sources.

And here I was thinking that China, Russia and India were the main offenders...