THE AIM WAS TO BREAK DOWN CONSUMERS’ RELUCTANCE TO CHOOSE A FORM OF LEISURE LIKE
Category
A01. Innovation
Entrant Company
THE CYRANOS McCANN Barcelona, SPAIN
Advertising Agency
THE CYRANOS McCANN Barcelona, SPAIN
Production Company
CANADA Barcelona, SPAIN
Credits
Name
Company
Position
Leandro Raposo
The Cyranos Mccann
Creative President
Pablo Colonnese
The Cyranos Mccann
Executive Creative Director
David Fernández/Joaquín Espagnol
The Cyranos Mccann
Creative Director
Eduard Cubel/Oscar Amodia/Alejandro García
The Cyranos Mccann
Art Directors
Jaume Rufach/Marc Sánchez/Nil Murtra
The Cyranos Mccann
Copywriters
Oriol Bombí
The Cyranos Mccann
Head Of Strategic Planning
Alba Riart
The Cyranos Mccann
Production Manager
Marta Grasa
The Cyranos Mccann
Account Director
Jesús Vergés
The Cyranos Mccann
Account Executive
Glassworks
Post Production Company
Marc Oller
Canadá
Director
Oscar Romagosa
Canadá
Executive Producer
Alba Berneda/Laura Serra
Canadá
Producers
The Brief
Teatreneu is an independent theatre company which has seen an alarming decline in its audiences due to the economic situation and the increase in taxes on arts performances.
After finding that older systems such as conventional advance ticketing had lost their effectiveness and ruling out charging on a voluntary basis as too subjective, the conclusion was reached that the only way to build up audiences and raise the average ticket price was to come up with a new formula.
This is how Pay Per Laugh was born: the first comedy theatre where you only pay for the laughs you get. To do this we installed facial recognition software in each seat to detect every smile and count them. Instead of paying in advance for comedy with no guarantee of it being minimally funny, we thought of paying at the end and only for the laughs you got, at 0,30 euros per laugh.
A way of encouraging people to come to the theatre while avoiding the anxiety involved in making the right decision at a time when people cannot afford the luxury - never a truer word - of getting it wrong.
We fit out each seat with a facil recognition system that detects the smile, and proposes the
following deal to spectators: 'Entrance will be totally free. If the show produces no laugh, you
don´t pay anything. However, if you laugh, you have to pay for each smile'.
Each smile produced is worth 30 euro cents, something that in this day and age is quite a
reasonable price.
And so that no-one would cry for having laughed more than they could afford, the maximum
amount to pay was 80 laughs or 24 euros.
The average ticket price was up by 6 euros on traditional performances.
The system was covered in the leading national media. This generated more publicity and, as a result, 35% more audience.
Each Pay Per Laugh performance took 7,200 euros, compared to the 4,400 euros they had been making before.
The Pay Per Laugh system is currently being replicated in other comedy theatres around Spain.
A mobile app was created to use as a payment system in other independent venues. And the first payment by the number of laughs and not performances was successfully launched.