CinemaNow® Social Images

• Objectives
• Solution
• A/B Testing
• Summary

Objectives

CinemaNow® allows users to buy and rent movies online. You can always find the current blockbusters on their homepage, but their most profitable sales came from the older "Library" titles such as Leprechaun 4, Resident Evil, Happy Feet, etc. We frequently ran social campaigns for movie collections with these sorts of titles in order to boost sales. Unfortunately, these titles were not glamorous, and couldn't garner enough clicks on their own so an alternative solution needed to be found.

Solution

Customers want to be pampered, and going the extra mile with creative can really benefit your marketing campaigns. After some preliminary testing it was discovered that developing unique key art, even though they were more time intensive, paid off in the long run. The vibrant colors and creative typography captivated our audience. Take a look at the CinemaNow® before and after promotion examples:

These pieces really gave me a chance to spread my artistic wings and develop my PhotoShop / retouching skills. A lot of designers will simply settle for stock art as is, when there is so much more you can get out of them! Take the Fantasy Movie Promotion; a composite of 4 images, plus close to a hundred layers of color and art manipulations.

A/B Testing

Iteration 1

We started with banners that utilized stills from the movies. Working with the marketing specialists and the data, I learned that the still photography from these older titles were neither inspiring or recognizable. So these variants were abandoned.

Iteration 2

Per managements request, we tried utilizing a single box art to represent a collection. I already knew that this test wouldn't perform well for a number of reasons, so I had an open conversation about the pros and cons. For example, take the Fantasy Movie Promotion - this had both Twilight and Gladiator in it. Since these movies are targeted to two very different audiences, you risk alienating part of your customer base when you only use one title. Together we decided to run a few banners, since it never hurts to test. As expected, these creatives fell flat so they were abandoned.

Iteration 3

Based on what I saw in the market place, I suggested utilizing unique key art creatives to represent the collections. These creatives were fresh and fun - especially for our growing social audience. Eventually this format was declared the winner for all future development.

Summary

• Researched the market place to see what would inspire our user base to click.
• Developed my Photoshop and artistic skills (from copy writing, to stock art manipulation, to title treatment design) in order to create new and fresh creative week after week.
• Adhered closely to the social calendar by developing creative weeks ahead of schedule.