We’ve all experienced it – that feeling as though every day is Groundhog Day: wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to sleep; wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, eat dinner, go to sleep – like clockwork. Mindlessly going through your day without ever stopping to enjoy the moment – like robots. While it may seem strange to emphasize these feelings in an advertising campaign, Cinemark and Hoyts do just that in their latest advertisement, “Robot.” 

The advertisement begins by showing us a robot go through his mind-numbing daily routine, from the buzzing 6 a.m. alarm, to the soul-sucking afternoon paperwork and end-of day commute. Day after day, it’s the same – until… one night he meets a woman robot at the theater. So moved by the film, the robot man cries a single tear. As it trickles down his metallic cheek, his face electrifies, energy surging through the rest of his body and transferring to the woman robot as he reaches for her hand. The camera pans out to show the couple in the movie theater, now no longer robots, but happy, emotional-filled humans.

Going to the movies does us good.

The Secret Weapon of Relatability

One of the reasons why Cinemark’s advertisement is so effective is because it portrays an almost universally relatable problem. Many people can relate to having the same colorless daily routine, and the feeling that it is slowly gnawing away at their humanity. Cinemark reminds us that shared experiences and a little escape can give us that much-needed spark of life that reminds us who we are, while letting us forget the grind. As an article on the Drum recently said: 

When we go to the movies . . . we leave all the bad outside and connect with those around us and with our emotions that are pushed aside due to our daily routines . . . The lights go out, we connect with the screen and nothing can get in the way.

Telling a Compelling Story

Cinemark truly brings their message home in “Robot.”  They paradoxically use a typically emotionless being in order to tell an emotionally compelling story. By relating a robot to the average person, they cause viewers to re-examine their own lives, and discover what makes them feel alive.