Proposing Social Futuristic Concepts in the Age of the Pandemic
35%
Revenue focused on concessions (2020)
11
Marketing concepts for hand-off
How might we create an engaging and personalized experience for movie-goers?
DESIGN PROCESS
Building from the Why
Our brand partner’s voice led us to explore the perfect blend between “loyalty,” “technology,” and “experience.” Diving deep into primary and secondary research, we discovered our base target audience, Generation Z. We asked those who have had and hadn’t gone to AMC about their movie-going experiences.
Using the insights we gathered, we represented their movie journey, before, during, and after the movie in consumer maps. Taking in the brand strategy, shared values between Gen Z, AMC, and Coca-Cola were identified. This created our umbrella for our organizing idea, “Optimize the Experience.”
14 Interviews
225 Survey Participants
Understanding Our Consumers
Along with the shared values we looked into the brand strategy and the four pillars that lead to the organizing idea. We looked at the purpose of the brand and the functional benefits of the brand. We also analyzed the consumer and their desires and needs.
Where to go from here?
Taking from our research, our concepts revolve around our user’s framework of making a shared social movie theater experience worthwhile. In direct relation to concessions, we improved the functionality of AMC’s food packaging to encourage a convenient and social experience, looking specifically into our old favorite, popcorn. Bringing food closer to the auditoriums may also expand on close opportunities to avoid missing a crucial part of that movie moment. Leveraging AMC’s online presence, we explored a new dimension of AMC’s loyalty Stubs program, advertising the presence of AMC and Coca-Cola’s partnership.
Conceiving the Idea
After receiving feedback from our partners, we refined our concepts based on their voice. After presenting four concepts, Coca-Cola and AMC decided that they wanted us to focus on “Better Together” while incorporating certain aspects of the “More” concept. With our new direction set, our team buckled down to begin the tactile ideas that they would present to the clients at the final presentation.
By engaging in usability tests and our theme “Better Together,” we redefined AMC’s 360-degree experience.
Main Concepts & Feature Impacts
Our “Better Together” packaging fully endorses shared concessions, especially with popcorn buckets! Movie-going should be a shared, engaging time with no hassle, so we explored how to make it easier how to get food to our users. Keeping in mind the challenges posed from our brand partner’s budget and maintaining Gen Z’s interest due to social media, we created better ways for people to place, share, and enjoy concessions.
Nothing is worse than having to get up in the middle of the movie to get some candy or to refill your popcorn. People also don’t like to stand in long lines or walk all the way to the concession area. So we designed the refreshment zone. The refreshment zone consists of insulated lockers that will keep your food fresh when you order ahead. The zone is modular, this way there can be different sized zones for different theaters and hallways.
From our research we found that Generation Z enjoys personalized experiences. We also found out that a great amount of people enjoy sweet and salty combinations together. And this is where the popcorn freestyle machine comes in. We all know about Coca-Cola freestyle® that lets you make your own unique combinations, with 2-3 different drinks of your choice, similar to this, the Popcorn Freestyle allows you to choose between different popcorn flavors and toppings (such as different candies that are sweet, salty or sour).
The new AMC Stubs experience brings four new expansions to the table: Shareable Stubs, Stub Collections, AMC Movie Moments and Better Trio.
✏️ My top 2 learnings from the AMC Theatres/The Coca-Cola Company collaboration
Verify consolidated themes with your stakeholders alongside minimal business requirements as early on in a project as possible. It makes for better understanding and alignment for any future transition.
Consider multiple marketing schemes and existing conditions (such as the introduction of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020) that will factor into change agents as part of the business challenge.
Industry
Entertainment &
Beverage products
Founded
1916
Revenue
$45.8 billion (2023)
My Role
Contextual Research, Visual Design, User Interface Design, Concept Ideation, Digital Prototyping
Timeline
10 weeks, Q4 2020
Overview
With COVID-19 heavily impacting the theatre experience, AMC Theatres and The Coca-Cola Company stakeholders presented a unique opportunity to imagine how the theatre experience could change to be revitalized in a post-COVID world.
The idea: to ideate, innovate and implement creative cost-effective solutions to real time AMC Food & Beverage challenges.
Solution
To redefine AMC’s 360-degree experience, we offered over 11 dimensions of new options and improved functions to encourage a convenient and social experience.
See the Flavor Make It campaign based on Popcorn Freestyle and Better Together concepts