Digital Audience Development: A content success story
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An overview of how I developed the BFI's digital content strategy to grow engaged audiences growing by +237% to 2 million visits a month making it the UK's most visited cultural institution (src: Comscore). Originally presented at La Cinémathèque française in Paris on 1 March 2017 to an international audience of film professionals. The presentation can be seen here in French from 41:40: http://www.cinematheque.fr/video/1016.html
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Digital Audience Development: A content success story
- 1. BFI DIGITAL AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT A CONTENT SUCCESS STORY @athytn
- 2. L'EXTENSION DES CINÉMATHÈQUES SUR LE WEB @athytn
- 3. THE BFI’S DIGITAL ROLE ON THE WEB PAST PRESENT FUTURE @athytn
- 4. Anthony Thornton Content and audience-growth strategist behind digital expressions of British Film Institute. Formerly NME and Marie Claire UK WHO AM I? @athytn
- 5. @athytn NME #1 Marie Claire #1 BFI #1 COMPETITORS
- 6. @athytn THE BFI The BFI works to ensure that film culture can be accessed and enjoyed by everyone across the UK.
- 7. @athytn THE BFI BFI National Archive BFI Southbank & BFI IMAX Education BFI London Film Festival BFI Film Fund
- 8. The BFI’s digital role on the web A brief history @athytn
- 9. PAST @athytn
- 10. 2012 Launch of Film Forever, the BFI’s 5 year strategy Digital: Increase visits by 25% @athytn
- 11. 2012 Represent the BFI Sell tickets @athytn
- 12. Audience Chiefly male 45+ Living in London @athytn
- 13. Target Audiences Film fan New to specialist film New enthusiast Established enthusiast @athytn
- 14. Film fan New to specialised film New enthusiast Established enthusiast Take audiences on a journey into film
- 15. Content engages and excites audiences @athytn
- 17. Content Case study Sci-Fi: Days Of Fear & Wonder @athytn
- 18. Target Audiences Film fan New to specialist film New enthusiast Established enthusiast @athytn
- 20. @athytn
- 21. @athytn
- 22. Target Audiences New to specialist film @athytn
- 25. @athytn
- 26. IMPACT 427k page views 290k unique users 56.8% new visitors @athytn
- 27. PRESENT @athytn
- 29. @athytn 37 % of BFI’s digital audience is aged 18-34 26% of the UK is aged 18-34*
- 30. @athytn 66% of the audience are outside London
- 31. FUTURE @athytn
- 32. 2022 Strategy Increase 16-30 year old audiences Increase inclusiveness @athytn
- 34. Content informs, educates and entertains current audiences @athytn
- 35. Content creates and nurtures the audiences of tomorrow @athytn
- 36. THANK YOU
Editor's Notes
- I ’m in charge of the content we create and publish on the website and beyond on social networks, YouTube and emerging platforms like medium. My job is to set and execute the strategy that develops digital audiences to meet the goals of the overall BFI strategy.
- Number one in their competitive sets. The BFI is the number one cultural institution in the UK, overtaking the Tate 12 months ago according to ComScore.
- The BFI National Archive is one of the largest film and TV collections in the world. It contains nearly one million titles. Works to preserve and publish. The BFI Film Fund champions, diverse bold and distinctive films.
- In 2012 the main role of the BFI website was to represent the various functions of the BFI on the web and to sell tickets to BFI Southbank. It felt like there was a huge opportunity to help the goals of the BFI beyond these narrow aims.
- Just 41% of visits to the website came from people outside London. Ed Humphrey, the BFI’s digital director, recognised that the digital strategy had to be something more sophisticated than this. He increased the size of the team. He hired me as head of digital content with the task of hitting the targets and serving the overall aims of the BFI as effectively as possible. It was vital to go back to the start and look at the key aim of the BFI to increase the access and appreciation of film culture. We identified four different audiences whose needs we should serve.
- Film fans – Watch mainstream movies at home and go to the cinema with friends, they are intrigued by the history of cinema but don’t know where to start with specialist film New to specialist film – Discerning, open-minded film fans who actively seek out more specialist cinema New Enthusiast – Possesses plentiful knowledge of cinema and have seen many key works Established Enthusiasts – Specialist film fans who know what they want and where to find it Once we had identified the audiences we set about creating a programme of work to create content for them.
- We create words, pictures, features and short-form video that reflects and promotes the BFI’s overarching cultural calendar, gives it additional context and is, where possible, evergreen. We provide diverse content for differing levels of passion and give new opportunities and pathways to help people on this journey into film
- Due to technological developments we have, at last, the ability to give people the opportunity to see specialist film and provide context for that specialist film beyond individual season.
- In 2013 we launched BFI Player, a video on demand service which meant that for the first time you could see the films we were discussing comprised of classic films and new releases. In 2014 we launched Britain on Film, containing over 5,000 films from the BFI National Archive and UK regional archives. This could be an entire presentation on its own. Suffice to say it has been and continues to be incredibly successful. In 2015 we launched the BFI Player’s subscription service. Subscribers have an unlimited access to over 400 classics of cinema. It is programmed to integrate with the cultural programme.
- In order to demonstrate our strategy in action, it’s useful to look at examples of the different type of content we created around one blockbuster season.
- In targeting the casual film fan it was important to create content that was engaging and could be enjoyed by a mass audience. It was a simple mutiple choice format that was fun and could be shared across Facebook and Twitter.
- The quiz was shared 2,000 times and seen by over 50,000 people across the BFI, Facebook and Twitter. Incidentally, I am Boba Fett
- For the New to Specialist film audience, who have a deeper knowledge than the film fan, it is important to encourage them to explore further. The list format (10 great) is a stimulating and compelling format that all four identified groups find extremely engaging, but particularly the New To Specialist Film audience. The format flatters both the New Enthusiast and the Established Enthusiast. It provides an opportunity to display that knowledge by contributing to the debate (and arguing about the initial list). For the Sci Fi season the most successful was 10 Great Films About The End Of The World, there were 27k views of it at the time. It still gets around 2.5k views every month LINK: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-films-about-end-world
- For the New Enthusiast audience we produced an in-depth 3,500 beautiful designed article on Tarkovsky’s two hugely influential sci-fi films Solaris and Stalker. This feature covered in-depth how the films came to be made, the themes of the films and their influence. It was an engaging read that reached over 20,000 people. The average time on page was over 5 minutes. http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/tarkovsky/
- For the Established Enthusiast the video essay ‘Auteur In Space’ was far and away our most successful piece for this audience. Viewed over 10,000 times [Play for first minute] https://vimeo.com/120835495 http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/54abf58f4dd50
- We programmed BFI Player with feature films to complement the programme of events at BFI Southbank and across the country. There were 61 films across the decades include mainstream titles, cult classics and rarities. http://player.bfi.org.uk/collections/sci-fi-days-of-fear-and-wonder/
- 427k page views 290k unique users 56.8% were new visitors Top BFI Player Titles: The Man Who Fell to Earth Friendship’s Death Quatermass and the Pit The Day the Earth Caught Fire Fahrenheit 451 Memoirs of a Survivor Silent Running Videodrome Fantastic Planet Flash Gordon Upstream Colour Back to the Future I’d like to mention the poll we ran asking the general public to pick their greatest Sci-Fi character of all time. The poll page ws visited 44k times and 11k votes were cast. IT was featured across UK media including Radio 4’s Today Programme, the UK’s most influential radio show.
- In 2012 we were getting 550k visits a month, Now we get 2 million visits a month. The target was +25%
- * UK Census 2011 (the most recent census)
- It was only 41% in 2012.
- You will have noticed that we are already overindexing for younger audiences. So the focus of the four distinct audiences will continue. There will be an increased focus on reaching out to audiences on other platforms outside of the BFI website for example YouTube, Facebook and email.
- We are looking at BAME, LGBT and disabled audiences. The first challenge is how to measure these audiences and benchmark how we are doing. We are exploring looking at mirror audiences and using surveys. We will be benchmarking this before the official start of the 2022 Strategy in April. I want to leave you with my thoughts on why the content-led approach has been so effective for the BFI.
- It creates trust and enhances the relationship with your audience.