Showcase

One of the UK's most iconic brands, Odeon Cinemas, chose Design UK as the agency to design a brand new website for its cinema goers.

With a cinema-going audience of millions its web presence naturally generates high levels of traffic from customers looking to research films they want to see, as well as booking tickets online. The website is also most visible way to communicate Odeon’s brand promise of being ‘fanatical about film’.

Unfortunately the site was not conveying this promise; its convoluted booking process was leading to a high number of customer drop-outs and its dark, unengaging design was difficult to use with poor levels of accessibility and usability. Odeon also needed to raise the site’s poor public profile and ensure that the new site was DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) compliant with a W3C rating of at least AA. Odeon therefore decided to revamp its on-line presence to maximise its users’ experience and drive bookings, registrations and return visits.

Design UK researched the key customer journeys and applied online shopping theory to create a revised information architecture and user experience, streamlined the booking process and improved the service for visitors. Customers now have the ability to rate and review movies, navigate by genre, view trailers and create personalised pages based on their own interests and behaviours. This enhanced experience has also been independently audited and meets AA accessibility rating.

The new site has received excellent feedback from different user groups. The refresh also resulted in some exceptional figures: in the first 3 weeks after launch, the percentage of online bookings more than doubled from 4 to 10%, with the increase in bookings being incremental traffic. For key film releases online bookings are now 30-40% of total sales. Within 6 months the traffic had increased by 85% compared to the same period last year* and the site is now recognised as one of the fastest growing online brands in the UK.

* Nielsen netratings