You guys blew it. You blew a golden marketing opportunity this past weekend to introduce yourselves properly to San Diego moviegoers. You had everything going for you: the setting, a captive audience of curious customers, a decent selection of free movies, a variety of concessions. A new theatre chain couldn't ask for a better marketing opportunity. Which, despite what you may say, is exactly what this was. Or at least could have been.

Marketing opportunity does not have to be a bad or evil thing. In this case, it was a chance for Madstone to show San Diegans what exactly Madstone is all about. It was a chance to provide a great first impression.

I'd already seen every free movie you were showing, so my main reason for driving down to the Hazard Center was to satisfy my curiosity about this new startup cinema company and get answers to these questions:

• What does the "Madstone" brand mean?
• Hell, what does the word mean?
• What does the company stand for? What are Madstone's values?
• What makes Madstone different from all the other chains?
• What are moviegoers supposed to think when they think "Madstone"?
• What's this Madstone DDN thingie and what does it mean to me? Are all films in Madstone Theaters going to be shown through digital projectors? Cool! Tell me more!
• Why should San Diegans go to this new Madstone theatre?

Unfortunately, I got no answers.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an average moviegoer. Most people who go to the movies are probably not thinking like architects and observing the flow of people through the spaces -- and obstacles -- both inside and outside. Most people aren't noting the popcorn on the floor, or the wasted straws on the counter, the mustard in the jalapeno jar, the smudges and scratches on the screen, or the missing right channel in the sound system (not that these were observed this particular weekend, but they're far too common, in my experience). Most people aren't observing how the movie-theatre company creates and works to maintain a brand identity with the moviegoers (those people who pay the theatre all of that cash, remember them?), through signage, responsive customer interactions, special services, seating, sightlines, quality of projection and audio, the design and content of brand-building shorts, inserts, and trailers before the feature presentations, etc. Most moviegoers couldn't care less.

But Madstone is apparently not targeting "most moviegoers". They seem to be targeting a more sophisticated clientele: serious moviegoers -- those who go to appreciate and support out-of-the-ordinary, independent filmmaking, not the next violent blockbuster. Those who are willing to sign up for an annual membership. "We're gonna make money through subscriptions!" -- where have we heard this before? But then, this is all just a guess, a guess based on perusing a rather cryptic "welcome brochure" provided at the lobby. A long list of membership benefits is provided, as well as pricing, yet nowhere does Madstone indicate exactly what it is members will be joining. Is this a film club? A cinema society? Will it have lectures, and special presentations from actors, directors, writers, producers, and editors? Will it offer advance screenings of feature films? Is that why I should join? I haven't the faintest idea. It's just not clear from the brochure.

I'm left knowing basically nothing about what Madstone's message or mission or vision is. All I went away with was a new question: "How the hell is this company going to be in business a year from now?"

It All Started With Yahoo
When I want movie showtimes I refer to a bookmarked Yahoo!Movies San Diego showtime listings page in my browser. I'd noticed over the past few months that the entry for Mann's Hazard Center theatre showed no showtimes, only a "Sorry, we have no information at this time" message. But two or three weeks ago, while randomly glancing through the page, I happened to see an entry for "Madstone Theaters" in the place where I used to see the old Mann Hazard Center listings. Months of asking "why doesn't Yahoo show showtimes for the Mann Hazard Center anymore?" were finally over. Curious, I typed "madstone.com" into my browser and, um, got something I wasn't expecting. Thank goodness for Google.

I made a simple mistake, once I got to Google, by typing "madstone theatres". Google's good, though, and not just suggested an alternative, but provided a link to it: "madstone theaters". (I spell it with an "re", Landmark spells it with an "re", but Madstone, they spell it with an "er" -- note to Madstone: guys, run, do not walk, to your nearest registrar and register madstonetheatres.com and while you're at it, buy the madstone.com domain!) The real Madstone Theaters website wasn't much of a help. It reminded me of a brand-new hotel with a few abstract murals on the wall but no furniture in the lobby and nobody at the registration desk. Looks promising, but nobody's home! I managed to find a registration page, so I signed up for the free weekend pass. The questionnaire was odd: "Which film genre best describes you: Scary, Romantic, Funny, Erotic, Classic, Animated, Foreign, Independent, Musical." How the hell are you supposed to answer that!?

Square Pegs, Round Holes
On Saturday, I went to Clerks. There were three or four people ahead of me at the box office window, All of them were filling out forms at a box office window not designed for customers to fill out forms. Certainly not three or four people at the same time. I'd already filled out the form on the website, and received an email from Madstone that I was told to print out and bring with me. Funny how the little mouse-holes that customers pass money through and ticket-tellers pass tickets and change through are not designed to accomodate 8 1/2 x 11" laser-printed sheets of paper with emails printed on them! Nevertheless, I handed the printout to the black-shirted woman who handed me a ticket and a little black card that would enable me to come back and see another movie for free -- this weekend only.

So I went in, immediately noticing that Madstone had painted the floor gray. (Probably not a good idea -- the floor surface is such that it will pick up scuffs and food-spillage marks fairly easily and I bet it's going to be a pain to keep clean! Prediction: if by this time next year Madstone is still in business, it will have covered the paint with carpet or tile or marble.)

I went into the dimly-lit auditorum showing Clerks, found a seat, sat down. Other than a 60-hz hum coming from the speakers behind the screen, there were no slides, no music -- none of the things that AMC and Pacific moviegoers in the San Diego area have become used to. Not that I'm complaining! Sitting through the latest "MovieTunes" urban contemporary pop & western muzak is not why I go to the movies. (Of course, I don't go for 60-hz buzzes either.)

In the aisle in front of me, a young couple sat down.

"I'm not used to this. There's no slides. What should we talk about?" she said.

"I don't know. How about I ask trivia questions or discuss Coca-Cola refreshments?" he said.

"So what is Madstone anyway?"

"I don't know."

"How to people know about this?"

"Dunno."

"Are they gonna try to be like an independent film theatre?"

So it went, while we all waited for whatever was going to happen to happen. It was good to know I wasn't the only one in the audience wondering about Madstone and What It All Means. It was bad to know there were only fifteen other people in the audience.

Finally the lights went out, and up came the message "View Askew Productions" on the screen, followed by the word "Dante" and suddenly there was a black-and-white movie playing and suddenly I remembered this was how Clerks began. I couldn't believe it. I shook my head in disbelief. Madstone just blew it. No introduction. No fanfare. No identity. No message. No brand. No story.

More Than Just Technical Difficulties
Perhaps you were curious enough, after the film, to rush home, fire up your web browser, and find out what Madstone Theaters is all about. Perhaps the web site would have the answers, since the black-shirted employees at the theatre apparently had none. Had you been this curious, had you visited their site this weekend, or even now, on the Monday after, you'd find a rather disconcerting home page, telling you that Madstone is currently experiencing technical difficulties. The question is, is this an elaborate joke? Or even a simple joke? Have you ever heard of a company that modifies its website on the weekend of a major new launch in a major market, and places not only a "we're having problems" message on its home page, but it goes to the trouble of putting it in huge, fancy letters!? No, this cannot be an elaborate joke. It's just profound cluelessness. Note to Madstone: guys, this is not how you create positive first impressions. This kind of homepage indicates you have no idea what you are doing, and that does not instill confidence in the moviegoer. Especially the sophisticated moviegoer looking for a new, edgy, theatre promising a great moviegoing experience.

Almost Famous? Gotta Ways to Go Yet, Madstone
Startups and black shirts are a long-standing tradition, and the Madstone employees were keeping the tradition alive. (Um, except, this is not an Internet startup. Maybe it thinks it is. Maybe that's the problem?) There were a lot of black shirts milling around inside the theatre lobby. Some behind the concession stand, two over by a kiosk apparently set up just for this special free weekend; others taking tickets. Strangely, there were far more black shirts than there were customers, at least when I arrived at 12:55 for a 1pm showing of Clerks. And when I came back on Sunday evening for a free showing of Almost Famous, the black shirts were everywhere once more. And once more, there were far more black shirts than there were customers. I was reminded of the movie Spinal Tap, where the band is appearing at a record store, only to find that none of their fans showed up. I guess Madstone used the same publicist. When Almost Famous was over, I walked out to find that the lobby was mostly deserted, it being now 9:30pm and most patrons having gone home. But the black shirts were everywhere still, and most did not seem to be busy. So I went up to one.

"Hi," I said. "I'm trying to figure out what Madstone Theaters is all about. And I haven't been able to. Maybe you could help me. I was hoping the theatrical experience would be somehow different, somehow new, with Madstone. It wasn't. What are you guys about? I noticed you didn't even explain what Madstone was about before the movie began. Instead the lights just went out and suddenly the movie started."

The Madstone lady looked at me like I was from Mars.

"Oh, we'll have introductions when we have our grand opening," she said. "For our free weekend we needed everyone on the floor."

"Oh, I see," I responded, thinking, Lady, you didn't answer my question followed by thinking Lady, do you know anything about the company you work for? While thinking of how I was going to re-word my question, I continued, saying, "So you're going to have real people at the front of the theatre introduce each film?"

"Yes," she said.

She looked at me with a blank expression. I looked back at her with the same, thinking, You still haven't answered my question. But before I could ask her the question in another way, she had turned away from me, to talk to someone else who has walked up to the kiosk. It was clear she did not want to talk with me further. Customers are from Mars, Companies from Venus.

I walked out of the lobby scratching my heard, wondering why Madstone's executives were not here to answer such questions. (Maybe that lady was a Madstone exec? Who knows? Should I care? I guess not.)

I think that's it in a nutshell -- Madstone did not engage this weekend's San Diego moviegoers in a conversation. It should have. It should have introduced itself, explained what it plans to do, what movies it plans to show, how it plans to show them. It should have explained to us why it is going to make a difference. It should have explained to us what value it is bringing into the San Diego movie market.

I'm left without any idea how Madstone is going to make a difference. They better hurry up and figure out how they're going to, or they're not going to make it.

I'm going to contact Madstone and bring this article to their attention. I'll post a followup with their reply.