Winners & Shortlists

PAY PER LAUGH

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Case Film

Presentation Board

TitlePAY PER LAUGH
BrandTEATRENEU
Product/ServicePAY PER LAUGH
Category A06. EVENTS & EXPERIENTIAL (INCL. STUNTS)
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 Campaign

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. This is why 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.

The Brief

The aim was to break down consumers’ reluctance to choose a form of leisure like the theatre and so build up audience numbers and at the same time increase average ticket prices.

Results

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.

Execution

We fitted every theatre seat with a facial recognition system to detect smiles and count them, and offered audiences the following deal: “Entrance is completely free. If the show doesn’t make you laugh, you don’t pay anything. But if you laugh, you’ll have to pay for every smile.” Every laugh raised is worth 30 euro cents, which the way the world is going is a pretty reasonable price. At the end of the show each member of the audience could see their account in laughs before paying for it, and even share it on their social networks. And to avoid any tears over having laughed too much, the maximum payable was 80 laughs or 24 euros.

The Situation

In mid-2013, the arts sector in Spain suffered one of its worst blows ever. The government decided to raise the tax on theatre performances from 8 to 21%, bringing about the biggest loss of audiences anyone can remember. 30 percent less audiences in just a year. The average cost of tickets fell by 20%. People turned to consuming massively “proven” entertainment like American blockbusters. Faced with this situation, the independent theatre company Teatreneu decided to take it with humour and invent something: Pay Per Laugh, the first comedy theatre where you only pay for the laughs you get.

The Strategy

To free people from a complicated decision and get them filling theatre seats again, we designed a ground-breaking, attractive and “fair” system of payment whereby they would only pay at the end and according to the laughs generated by the show.