The state of the movie theatre
industry today tells you a lot about what we’re missing: shared experiences,
both in work and life.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V
AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1
DEC 10, 2024
Don’t expect any rational adult to be
returning to traditional movie theatres any time soon – if
ever. Unless they’re dragged there by their pre-teen kids to watch the sixth
sequel to some animated comic-book story or some hyper-marketed and painfully
bloated film version of a musical like Wicked, where
you can spend some 2 ½ hours watching what turns out to be only the first half
of the story.
Anything worth watching for more than
30 minutes today requires only the patience to wait for the streamed version
and the prescience to have subscribed to the correct number of streaming services. That, or the utter laziness to have
failed to have cancelled the bulk of those subscriptions for lack of use. No
one ever said it better than Springsteen, complaining about “57 Channels (And
Nothin’ On).” The same is true now that we’ve reached 570 channels. There’s no
question that we spend more time jumping around from service to service and
show to show than we do watching anything from start to finish. It’s just so
very hard to convince yourself that the total time investment is worth your
while.
Why There’s Nothing to Share
How sad and unfortunate, because in
the old days there was nothing quite as powerful, inexpensive and rewarding as
the shared experience in a darkened theatre where a rapt audience was engaged
and enthralled in the film rather than snacking, sleeping, acting out, or
exploring their mobile phones while imagining they were elsewhere. Boorish
behavior, Covid-19, crime, crazy inflated ticket prices, filthy facilities, and
a fortune for food also helped to kill the classic grand venues and the golden
goose. Watching anything on the miniscule screens inside one of the dozen
little boxes that make up the typical multiplex is akin to feasting on faux
Italian cuisine at an Olive Garden. Most of the time, the movies today are more
about popcorn and peanuts than the feature.
Even if you never really thought that
the movie crowd was actual company – just as “friends” on Facebook have nothing
to do with authentic friendship – we still all miss the idea of gathering in
some place with like-minded and well-intentioned folks to actively participate
in a real-time physical experience. One in which you may be jostled but never
crowded and, more importantly, never felt alone. Sporting events and rock
concerts (if you’ve got four or five hours to commit) are as close as we come
to a singular sensation that feels both reassuring and real. People show up,
they share, and they care.
Hello Loneliness, I Think I’m Gonna Cry
We’re all looking in the post-pandemic
world for opportunities to escape the isolation, loneliness and the pent-up
unhappiness of being shut-in while being shut out. When you’re working alone at
home, sitting in front of a computer screen and pretending that it’s “social”,
and feeling that the world (if you believe the made-up images and lies online)
is passing you by.
In part, this longing to get back to
the past is a melancholic and nostalgic fantasy, but it also reflects a
critical migration that’s important for every business. We want to get out of
our heads and re-enter the real world; we’re not sure where we’re going, but
we’re certain that we won’t be returning to the lock-down and lock-ups of the
recent past. Been there, never want to do that again.
We’re moving along a continuum of
demand and engagement, from the early days of texts and pictures through videos
and TikTok and onward – some might say backward – toward a new era of
experiential everything. Not digital, not virtual, not simulated, but simply
tangible and concrete.
Because the critical component of the
process is necessarily, but not exclusively, tactile rather than technical or
mechanical, I don’t expect any mass market adoption of the VR googles, glasses,
headsets or other devices which the tech bros are now flogging. That’s mainly
because they’re not inclusive or truly immersive; if anything, they’re even
more isolating and sterile than staring into a screen all day. Even the best
ads for the new Meta Quest headsets make the user look like an idiot stumbling
around a room, lost in a CG morass, or just punching widely into the air.
Audit Your Business for Its Human Quotient
We most likely leaped far too quickly
over the “experience economy” in many ways and now we need to find our way back
for ourselves and for our businesses. Hat tip to my friend Joe Pine for his early work in this area. For reasons of speed,
cost and convenience, our technologies have sucked most of the joy and intimacy
out of the basic services and interactions we rely upon daily. We’re slowly
re-discovering that we miss the welcome, warmth and comfort of the familiar,
casual and personal ways we used to behave with others – whether it was in a
retail content, an entertainment venue, a medical facility, a school, or
anywhere else. And we’ve reached a point where the solutions most likely need
to be face-to-face rather than even side-by-side in a darkened theatre.
Every business needs to review and
audit their front-line and front-of-house dealings with consumers, customers
and prospects to determine just how up close and personal – how warm and
welcoming – their stores, offices, venues and buildings presently are. Suffice
it to say, for the moment, they’ll be surprised, if not shocked, at just how
cold, foreboding and sterile these environments have become and how unappealing
they appear to the outside world.
How Automation Dehumanized Us Without Improving Anything
“Personal” banking is an easy and
oxymoronic example. Shrinking their public-facing spaces, eliminating cash
transactions and other services, removing tellers and substituting ATMs, and,
of course, substantially stepping up their security have turned our
neighborhood bank branches into harsh and intimidating places with a few humans
caged behind bullet-proof glass and a bunch of now empty and unused offices
gathering dust and awaiting the latest renovations into Capital One cafes and
quasi-coffee houses. If you’re looking for a public place to camp out (and get
out of the house), and Starbucks has clearly decided by shrinking their stores
that they no longer want to be your workplace, I guess any port in a storm will
do.
The math can’t possibly work for the
banks over the long-term as they try to substitute Keurig machines for tellers
and my sense is that they’re already retreating from this approach. It’s hard
to fake familiarity and feelings – a bank will never be your best buddy.
Medical offices have mainly exchanged
the old wads of paper forms attached to clipboards for tablets and iPads,
kiosks, or mobile apps which are redundant, painfully long, and often
indecipherable. They demand information such as prescription and medication
lists from you that are never readily available or days and dates of long past
surgical procedures that have nothing to do with present concerns.
Every office in the medical world is
largely an island (for various regulatory and competitive reasons) and the
computer companies that provide and support the world of electronic medical
records absolutely hate the idea of the kinds of interoperability that would
make all our lives easier. Here again, finding a helpful human – still hidden
behind barriers of one kind or another – is a difficult task and one that most
often makes you feel like you are an imposition rather than a patient seeking
information, support, comfort and care.
Fast food outfits that now deploy
kiosks and drive-through screens instead of face-to-face service are another
way in which we’ve dehumanized these environments and removed every possible
vestige of connection and intimacy from the process. (Here again, the good news
is that the fast-food giants are already bagging many of the new digital
systems.) These machines stare back at us without warmth and are far more
confusing, intolerant and punitive of entry errors or order changes than even
the slowest human team member. It’s hard to imagine that challenging and
intimidating your customers is the best opening gambit for a successful visit
and sale.
But businesses have grown to trade off
unpleasant customer experiences in exchange for speed, access and convenience –
not to mention cost cutting and automation – without appreciating that we are
undermining our true connection with our clients and sacrificing long-term
brand value and customer loyalty in the name of short-sighted efficiencies and
savings. Savings which may not even be effective or worthwhile.
As we face an increasingly uncertain
future, it makes a lot of sense to take the time to look at the way things
were. Maybe we need to go back to the one-on-one way we once treated each other to
reach a more authentic, empathetic and successful future.