Are We There?

Last night I saw Vantage Point with a couple friends. We were waiting on Kat to arrive at our house so we could leave for the movie, and Sam kept saying, "where is she? If she doesn't come soon we need to go to a later movie or we'll miss the previews." All the other girls were agreeing with her and began looking up later movie times to avoid missing the previews.

I smiled to myself as I realized that one form of advertising was so successful that instead of discussing the product (the actual movie), the consumers were discussing the advertising for futre products.

Then we got to the movie and after each preview one of the girls would ask, "are we there?" inquiring if we would have to see that movie as well. After almost every single preview, the girls would agree that it was a must-see.

Then I realized one more thing. We would never see all of those movies. Two weeks from now if I brought up one of the movies we saw a preview for and suggested we go see it, no one would care at that point.

So what is the industry doing wrong? We look forward so much to the previews, yet, we're not inclined enough to actually go see it later.