'Breaking the Blockbuster Code: Audience Evolution Patterns Revealed' Offers Hard Evidence That Tentpole Audiences Evolve Over Time . Results Challenge Movie Marketers To Re-think How Tentpole Moviegoers Behave. Los Angeles, CA and Auckland, New Zealand; March 10, 2016 – Movio, the global leader in marketing data, analysis, insights and campaign creation for theatrical exhibitors, studios and film distributors, delivered the results of its exclusive research White Paper “BREAKING THE BLOCKBUSTER CODE: Audience Evolution Patterns Revealed” at Variety’s MASSIVE Summit on Thursday, March 10, 2016 at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills.
Movio Chief Executive and Co-Founder Will Palmer revealed the results of a research project initiated by Movio exclusively for MASSIVE in his Spotlight conversation with Variety Co-Editor Andrew Wallenstein.
In 'Breaking the Blockbuster Code: Audience Evolution Patterns Revealed,' Movio’s data scientists challenged the Hollywood film marketing community to re-think who makes up the opening weekend of a blockbuster film.
“Most people in the film industry agree that the audience of a tentpole film on opening night is a good indicator of its target audience and who will see it over the full theatrical run,” said Palmer. “But our research indicates that audiences significantly evolve over time.”
The top behavioral patterns revealed in this research are:
- Avid young male moviegoers over-index on opening night.
- Avid moviegoers over-index on opening weekend.
- Young moviegoers over-index on Tuesday, when most cinema exhibitors offer discounted price tickets.
- The share of female audience grows over the course of the theatrical run.
- Saturday & Sunday are proportionally dominated by 30-50-year-old moviegoers.
- The 50+ -year-old audience declines at the slowest rate.
A traditional scarcity of available data has forced film studios to make assumptions on audience composition based on titles deemed comparable and years of industry knowledge. This anticipated audience composition can be the foundation of the entire marketing strategy and media plan of a blockbuster film. But only an in-depth analysis of the actual movie-going audience of these comparable titles can support these assumptions. Moreover, in this new era of instant feedback, the main challenge faced by studios resides in their ability to react to the shifts in audience composition post-release.
The access to behavioral movie-going data is opening new territory to film studios and how they interact with their audience pre-release and throughout the run. For access to Movio’s complete “BREAKING THE BLOCKBUSTER CODE: Audience Evolution Patterns Revealed” research whitepaper, visit movio.co/massive.
About MASSIVE: The Entertainment Marketing Summit™
VARIETY‘s MASSIVE Summit hosts a unique one-day summit dedicated to the business and shared ideas between advertisers, studio and TV content partners, digital media brands and next-generation technology leaders. MASSIVE features top CMOs, advertising agencies, brand marketers, advertisers and film, TV, digital media and video game chiefs as they explore how their breakthrough ideas and campaigns have changed the current landscape of the industry. The summit explores the best strategies to advance entertainment and brand awareness as consumers scatter across new media options and multiplying screens and platforms.
Movio MASSIVE PR 