The time before a movie starts is a precious one: it’s a time to check your Twitter feed, update your Facebook status, and consume – within a matter of 5 minutes or less – the entirety of the $400 snack pack you purchased from the concession stand, even though you have a perfectly acceptable water bottle in your backpack, and ugh, what is a Sno-Cap. But now Audience Entertainment wants to disrupt our nirvana and introduce a little disgusting something called “interactive marketing,” right before the show begins.
The premise is simple: Audience Entertainment will attach cameras, microphones, and individual sensors to seats in the audience. These devices will then allow audience members to interact with images/ads on screen, just by twisting or turning in their seats. The goal, according to Techcrunch, is to get viewers to “engage with the ads onscreen, even if only for 30 or 60 seconds, rather than just checking Facebook or Twitter while they wait for the movie to start.”
Great. If there’s one thing I need while waiting for Expendables 3 to begin, it’s even more product placement. More advertising. More group interaction. There’s nothing I’d like more than to simulate skiing with the old lady in hammer pants next to me, just so we can score that last precious drop of virtual. Mountain. Dew.
The technology is currently in its beta phase (thank God), but the company has plans to introduce it to arenas, concert venues, and other third-party developers. Too bad, because the whole reason people go to the movies is so they enjoy some nice, sedentary, entertainment. If this technology ever goes viral, you can expect to find me – and my real life Mountain Drew – protesting passively in the back row.