I suspect it’s social overload. It’s another username, another password, and another interface I have to invest in. It makes perfect sense on the surface. The Hoyts folks are doing all the right things. But to me as a consumer, it’s annoying. I’m crossing my fingers the activation process is straight forward. My experience of movie reward schemes isn’t super. They’ve been overly technical and cumbersome and when I have turned up with my internet purchased ticket, I still end up having line up at the ticket office anyway.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually think it would have been better if the Hoyts scheme was connected to an existing social network, and yes, I mean The Social Network, Facebook. For all the flaws and weaknesses of this (not everyone uses Facebook, privacy concerns of conservative users etc), you’re more likely to get engagement. I figure –
- If you’re not into social by the time you activate your Hoyts card, then there’s little chance you’ll use the features.
- If you are into social by the time you activity your Hoyts card, then you’re probably already on Facebook or Twitter (at least one of these two anyway)
I could be wrong and as I’ve said, I haven’t activated the account (and I’m not going to yet), but I doubt the Hoyts social features will get much traction and will get limited return on investment for the company. I’m happy to be proved wrong when I finally do activate the card (with school holidays coming up next week, I’m sure activation is a couple of days away), but I don’t hold out much hope.
Note: I just wanted to note that I do like the design of the folder. The explanations are clear and simple. And I think the Step 1: Activate and Step 2: Personalise (which I instantly recognise as ‘get social) is easy to understand. Just hoping that once I log on, the process is just as simple.