What a year 2019 has been for Movio. With only a few weeks left to go before we kick off the next decade, we took a moment with some of our Leadership team to reflect on the past year and what they’re most excited about moving forward into 2020. As our goals and achievements continue to grow with the beginning of this next chapter, 2020 is shaping up to be an exciting year for both Movio and the industry. Check out the full interviews below.
William Palmer
Ex CEO, Co-founder
Highlight from 2019:
Launching our new brand in spectacular fashion at CinemaCon and together with our partners in exhibition, setting an ambitious yet achievable target of increasing global box office by $1B. Whilst we still have a fair way to go, the entire industry has made huge strides in using AI to understand and connect moviegoers to their ideal movie.
What you’re most excited about for 2020:
Having profiled billions of box office admissions over the past 10 years, Movio is in the privileged position to uniquely understand moviegoing behaviour. In 2020, our aim is to provide a new technology platform that further empowers exhibitors and studios to work together directly, with the common goal of connecting the right content with the right moviegoer, so that the entire film industry enjoys increased box office success.
Next movie you’re looking forward to seeing:
The Gentlemen. I love Guy Ritchie films and the cast in this one has to be his best yet.
Sarah Lewthwaite
Chief Executive Officer
Highlight from 2019:
Our launch of Movio Media in the UK has been a very exciting step forward in Movio’s evolution in Europe. We now have over 50% of cinema data in the UK which provides an unprecedented opportunity in this market to provide actionable moviegoer insights to film studios, distributors and digital agencies. We are really challenging how the industry has traditionally mass marketed films and are helping to shift film studios to focus on a highly targeted and measurable approach to their digital media campaigns.
What you’re most excited about for 2020:
We are putting a lot of focus on working hand-in-hand with our clients right now to ensure they are making the most of Movio and I am excited to see how we help drive more moviegoers into cinemas next year. There is still so much opportunity to help boost box office with Movio’s data science tools!
Next movie you’re looking forward to seeing:
Little Women, I love Greta Gerwig films and can’t wait to see how she adapts this classic story. A perfect movie for the holiday season!
Matthew Liebmann
Ex COO
Highlight from 2019:
Having our data science team’s work to definitively calculate the incremental dollar uplift that our clients receive from using Movio Cinema be validated and endorsed by the Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Harvard University - and having that uplift number be so incredibly large at US$326 million over just 12 months.
What you’re most excited about for 2020:
We’ve been steadily improving Movio Cinema for the past 10 years but as we enter our second decade, there is nothing incremental about what we have in store for the platform and I cannot wait until we can show our clients Movio Cinema’s quantum leap forward in 2020!
Next movie you’re looking forward to seeing:
The first movie I ever asked to see in cinema was Star Wars: A New Hope, and so watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with my kids is my sentimental pick, but I do think that Sam Mendes’ 1917 looks absolutely extraordinary.
Shona Grundy
Ex Head of Product
Highlight from 2019:
For a company at the age and stage of Movio, which still has huge passion and spirit of innovation, is honestly rare and fantastic. It’s a great combination of experience and expertise, matched with the drive to constantly challenge and reinvent themselves.
I've spent the last 8 years or so trying to drive innovation and hone product and business best practices. I feel really emotional when I see things not being done thoughtfully, or where there is waste and a sense of not achieving. So a company that strives to be better, in every way possible, is right where my heart is; joining Movio in the last quarter of this year is the highlight for me.
What you’re most excited about for 2020:
The new products we're launching; we will be ramping up the innovation. Watch out 2020 we are coming for you!
Next movie you’re looking forward to seeing:
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (just booked the recliner seats for the family!)
Craig Jones
Chief Commercial Officer and President, Media
Highlight from 2019:
The launch of our Netflix-style moviegoer recommendation engine - leveraging Movio’s Propensity Algorithm - for audience segmentation, has generated staggering results for our studio clients. While digital programmatic campaigns generally see average conversion rates of only 0.77% across all industries (assuming they can even measure purchases at all), Movio’s studio clients consistently saw conversion rates 4X that average (with some up to a staggering 8X that average!) for their digital media campaigns.
When applied to Movio’s studio direct email campaigns, the results were even more significant. For certain titles, the moviegoers we identified as having the highest likelihood of attending, converted (purchased tickets) at rates of over 30% and up to 50%.
The days of film studios thinking that the only way to effectively target moviegoers is by dumping them into broad demographic groups or genre-based buckets, are officially over.
What you’re most excited about for 2020:
Over the last 12 months we have built out a dedicated film studio research and analytics business in Los Angeles and London, comprising data scientists, statisticians, data analysts and even an economist. Working directly with our studio clients, this team has launched a number of compelling new products this year, including pre-sales ticket tracking and benchmarking, audience evolution reports, geographic insights, and enhanced moviegoer ethnicity profiling. In 2020, I’m excited to see them extend their focus to supporting production and film distribution decision-making, measuring the effectiveness of digital and advanced TV media channels, and media planning.
Next movie you’re looking forward to seeing:
The next James Bond film, No Time to Die. In my - possibly somewhat controversial - opinion, Daniel Craig has been the best Bond to date.
Holly Jones
Head of Marketing
Highlight from 2019:
I have two big highlights from this year, firstly delivering our new Movio brand. This was a huge project that we started and delivered on this year. It’s been really exciting to see the evolution of the Movio look and feel and my team worked incredibly hard to deliver new brand assets in a short amount of time. The hard work has definitely paid off; our custom font won silver at the Best design awards, we have comprehensive online brand guidelines and most importantly a brand we’re all incredibly proud of. My second big highlight is publishing our white paper, The Diversity Demand: Securing The Future Of Moviegoing. We explored the correlation between on-screen representation of minority groups and theatrical attendance from the corresponding audience segments, something that had never been done before. This is just the start of a conversation and the coverage and response we’ve had to the paper so far has been amazing.
What you’re most excited about for 2020:
Movio is almost 10 years old, and next year I’m really excited about what entering a new decade will mean for us in terms of product development, innovation and our contribution to the industry. As a marketing team we want to push boundaries and question tradition so our industry continues to thrive - that will be a big theme for us next year.
Next movie you’re looking forward to seeing:
There are so many, but I can’t wait to see Bombshell. The combination of Charlize, Nicole and Margot, the cinematography style and the undeniable crazy true story will be enticing me to see it on the big screen! A close second is The Gentlemen, great cast and it looks classic Guy Ritchie.
Nicolas Maquet
Chief Technology Officer
Highlight from 2019:
In 2019, the engineering team has doubled down on its strategy to invest in its people for the long term. This year, we have started a Graduate Programme, bringing in new junior talent fresh out of University. We gave them a ton of attention, resources, and opportunities to contribute and the results have been outstanding; both grads have infused a ton of energy, fresh ideas, and positivity into the team. Also this year, we have started an internal Technical Leadership Programme, a series of advanced seminars targeted at senior tech leaders. The programme's aim was to prepare its participants for positions with a lot more responsibility and autonomy. Incidentally, each one the seminar's participants were offered such opportunities towards the end of the year, and each one seized it with confidence!
In short, the highlight of 2019 for me is to have observed firsthand how investing in our team's growth has benefited both the recipients of these efforts, but also Movio as a whole. Truly a win-win for everyone.
What you’re most excited about for 2020:
Movio is at the cusp of a significant shift in its engineering strategy. We are incrementally migrating to a new architecture that will enable developers in different teams to collaborate more efficiently. We will achieve this by standardising how software components communicate with each other, as well as standardising monitoring, logging, documentation, etc. This a natural progression for a tech company that has evolved from being a single-developer project to the 25+ engineers that we have today. The reason I am so excited about this is that, once the migration is completed in 2020, the marginal effort of adding a feature to our system will be much much lower than it is today. To thrive, Movio needs a sustained pace of innovation and this strategy is a key enabler of that.
Next movie you’re looking forward to seeing:
Venom 2! I don't care what the critics say, I thought that Venom was a fantastic adaptation of the comics. It's gritty, dark, violent, and exhilarating, and I loved it. I grew up on movies like Robocop, Spawn, Blade, etc. all of which were dark yet fun. Glad to see that genre of film is alive and kicking.
Susanne North
Head of People, Culture and Performance
Highlight from 2019:
The most exciting project in my six months with Movio has been to roll out the Peakon Engagement Survey. The reason this is so exciting is because we will be able to measure and know how our crew are experiencing Movio and this will continue to guide our initiatives going forward, improving where we can and keep investing in areas that are important. Another exciting project has been putting the foundations in place for the development and growth of our entire crew at Movio. The ongoing work in these areas will strengthen our culture and continue to make Movio an employer of choice.
What you’re most excited about for 2020:
We will continue our work in the growth and development space, looking at ways to create career pathways and growing future leaders by building on the foundations we have created so far. This is super exciting and will hopefully have a really positive impact on our Movio crew’s career and growth, and how they are experiencing their time with Movio.
Next movie you’re looking forward to seeing:
This is a tricky one as there are a few I really, really want to see so instead of picking only one I'm picking my top three! I'm planning on seeing The Good Liar soon which is on now and has some great old actors in it. I also really want to see Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen that is coming out very soon. Another one which I also have to see when it comes out in April next year, is the new James Bond movie No Time to Die.
Stay tuned for more on our products and vision for 2020 as we head into the New Year!
