2011 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

Thousands of Bahraini moviegoers saw the promotional materials and visited the O-cinema website. In under a month, O Cinema.com enjoyed over 1,000,000 hits, and over 50,000 people registered to use the service. Electronically booking movie tickets became the norm for Bahrainis across the Kingdom.

Creative Execution

Our insight was that moviegoers spend a lot of time studying the movie posters to decide what to watch and discover forthcoming attractions. We created a series of promotional and merchandising materials - typical to that of a big budget Hollywood blockbuster - for a fake horror movie called “The Ticket”, with the byline “The ticket will find you”. Promotional materials for “The Ticket” could be seen everywhere in Bahrain. Movie posters were put up in all theatres in Bahrain, right next to the other real coming attractions. There were also large cardboard cutouts of the movie erected next to ticket lines, so that people could see them while they waited. We also put up billboards and branded walls, stairs, pillars and popcorn counters, making “The Ticket” seem like one of the biggest movies ever to hit Bahrain.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

In Bahrain, going to the movies is a national pastime. But with only four cinemas in the whole of the Kingdom, long ticket queues have become a part of life. Batelco, Bahrain’s leading telecommunications provider, wanted to target frustrated moviegoers at the source, and inform them about O-Cinema, a new portal that lets them purchase movie tickets online and on their phones.