dentsu X Singapore and The Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia End the Wait for Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame

Fans have waited 10 years for the epic end of the Marvel Studios cinematic journey, so with the premiere of Marvel Studios’ Avengers: Endgame in Singapore launching today, dentsu X Singapore stays true to their vision ‘Experience Beyond Exposure’ to create an interactive out-of-home (OOH) campaign to end the wait for fans and drive movie attendance.

Fans from Singapore rode on the #DontSpoilTheEndGame trend and rushed to get tickets to be among the first to watch the movie and avoid spoilers, leading to unprecedented traffic volume to cinema sites on the first hours of the advance sales opening day on 10th April 2019.

In light of this, dentsu X worked with The Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia to launch a human-centred idea that transforms the waiting time at bus stops all over the island into a cinema box office, putting an end to the waiting war of finding the next available movie timeslot. This interplay between content and context aims to sustain the excitement and continuously create a sense of urgency to watch the movie in cinemas.

The Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia together with Posterscope, world’s leading out-of-home (OOH) communications agency – and part of Dentsu Aegis Network, CNS Connections and media owner Clear Channel, executed the idea for the first time ever in Singapore, through a new innovative ecosystem which pulls real-time data (e.g.: movie showtimes and nearest cinema location) from cinema operators and displays it interactively on 100 digital bus shelter screens islandwide.

This ecosystem consists of three key phases:

• Phase 1 (Pre-season): To create hype and continuously drive advanced ticket sales, we geo-targeted cinemas to each of the bus shelters and displayed the information on its digital screens. Each location was strategically plotted in proximity to cinemas that are screening the movie.

• Phase 2 (Eve of official movie release): One day before the premiere, a “One Day Countdown” was launched for the highly anticipated movie.

• Phase 3 (In-season): From today, the screens will be refreshed to feature all five cinema operators’ API live feeds to display actual movie showtimes. Screens will again be customised through geo-fencing – each bus shelter location will be paired with the nearest two cinemas, enabling the public to see real time movie ticketing status for two weeks. Each showtime will be colour-coded according to their status: Red for ‘Limited Seats’, Green for ‘Filling Up Fast’ and Grey for ‘Available’.

To facilitate the final stage – ticket purchase – dentsu X created the Marvel Facebook Messenger chatbot utilising the hashtag #AvengersSG, which takes users through a personalised ticket-buying experience.

“With such a blockbuster hit being released coupled with years of waiting, fans and movie-goers deserve a memorable experience right from the start. We worked together with The Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia to create a seamless experience derived through platform innovation to create an experience for the fans.We created an offline to online approach that will not only help drive footfall to specific cinema locations, but allow fans to be a part of this milestone launch simply by engaging with the digital media placements while waiting at bus stops,” said Jessica Beaton, General Manager, dentsu X Singapore.

“The first-ever live movie showtime display for Avengers: Endgame’s Clear Channel campaign will set a new standard to showcasing films and bring us one step closer to OOH attribution. By delivering highly contextual ads at the right moment, we impact consideration for commuters to head to the nearest cinema to catch the blockbuster,” said Amanda Woo, Head Client Partnerships and Business Development, Clear Channel Singapore.

“Walt Disney Studios constantly explores innovation in consumer engagement strategies. The provision of real-time geo-targeted movie sessions in an OOH environment presents the golden opportunity for Disney to literally demonstrate that it will do whatever it takes to elevate the movie goer’s consumer decision journey for the highly anticipated Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame,” said Abel Teo, Creative Director, CNS Connections.

Credits –
General Manager: Jessica Beaton
Head of Creative: Joao Flores
Media Director: Irene Sim
Senior Media Executive: Cheryl Lee
Media Executive: Scott Lee
Account Manager: Nabilah Razak
Account Executive: Crystal Loo
Copywriter: Lena Silva
Art Director: Woon Chng
CNS:
Creative Director: Abel Teo
Project Lead: Abel Tan
Developers: Nicholas Ng & Deyao Ang