More Related Content
Similar to What Women Want - Movio White Paper (20)
What Women Want - Movio White Paper
- 3. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
2
Two of the All-Time North American Domestic Top 10 movies, Jurassic
World and The Avengers: Age of Ultron, were released in 20151
. However,
despite the nearly US$2B earned by these two films alone, the unadjusted
cumulative box office for the year is up only 6% on 2014 and less than 1%
on 20132
. This suggests that successful big-budget tentpole films are not
sufficient for driving an increase in overall moviegoing. Due to the large
production budgets, it’s also not feasible to simply produce more of these
types of films, and this may be counterproductive as it simply divides the
same viewership over a larger number of movies.
Therefore, we would like to ask the question:
Are there groups of moviegoers that attend the cinema regularly but avoid
tentpole films?
• If so, what do these groups look like?
• What types of content do they prefer?
• Would it make sense to spend more resources producing
and/or marketing content to these groups?
The Box Office Challenge
1. Box Office Pro - All time domestic gross
2. Box Office Pro - Quarterly domestic gross
- 4. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
3
Movie Clusters
In order to better understand the preferences of different segments
of moviegoers, we first construct an audience-based network of the movies
released between 1 January 2014 and 15 September 2015. To build the
network, we take advantage of the Movio Media Research platform3
. This
platform contains data describing the demographics and moviegoing history
of over eight million moviegoers throughout North America, and it provides
studios, distributors, and advertisers with a variety of tools to develop a better
understanding of how movie audiences behave. In particular, Movio Media’s
Similarity Rating provide us with a measure of the audience similarity
between each pair of movies under consideration.
This rating is based on a similarity score, which is an estimate of the
likelihood of the size of the audience intersection for a particular pair
of movies given the size of each movie’s individual audience as well as
the size of the total population. The similarity score is given by:
where p1
, p2
, and p12
are the proportions of the population that saw movie 1,
movie 2, and both movies, respectively. The similarity rating is calculated by
normalizing the similarity scores so that the similarity rating varies between
zero and ten, and the average movie’s best match has a rating of five.
Methodology
score =
p12
– p1
p2
p1
p2
(1 – p1
) (1 – p2
)
3. www.moviomedia.com
- 5. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
4
Once we have a matrix of pairwise similarity ratings, we create the graph
by placing an edge between each movie and each of its ten most similar
movies. Each edge is weighted by the similarity rating between the
pair. Using these edges as an affinity matrix, we apply a spectral graph
partitioning algorithm4
to break the set into k clusters, selecting the value of
k that maximizes the modularity5
of the partition. We then create subclusters
by applying this algorithm again to each cluster, once again selecting the
number of clusters using a maximum modularity condition. However, if the
resulting modularity would be less than 0.2, the partitioning into subclusters
is unlikely to add much information, so we leave the cluster intact.
Audience
Once we have constructed a network, we would like to profile the audience
for each of the clusters in order to better understand the differences between
the various segments of the moviegoing population. To create these profiles,
we take a sample of one million moviegoers from the Movio Media Database
that watched at least two of the movies in the network. The sampling
is performed so that the age and gender distribution of the resulting
population is consistent with the general moviegoing population described
in the latest MPAA Theatrical Market Statistics report6
.
The sample has an average age of 40, is 52% female, and watched an
average of 8.0 movies in the database at a rate of 6.4 movies per year
(the frequency is greater than the number of movies / the total time, as
not all members were in the programme over the entire period).
Peferences
An important component of each moviegoer profile is the moviegoer’s
preference for each cluster or subcluster of movies. In order to estimate
this preference, we take an empirical Bayesian approach, using a Beta
(α, β) prior, with αi
=pi
, βi
=1-pi
, where pi
is the proportion of total movie views
associated with the i th
cluster or subcluster. This ensures that we only assign
strong preferences to moviegoers for which we have a large amount of
information, and therefore we assume that moviegoers that have only seen a
couple of movies are most likely to have average preferences.
Sample of one million moviegoers.
4. Ng AY, Jordan, MI, & Weiss Y 2001, ‘On Spectral Clustering: Analysis and an Algorithm’, Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, pp 849-856.
5. Newman MEJ 2006, ‘Modularity and Community Structure in Networks’, PNAS, vol. 103, no. 23, pp 8577-8582.
6. MPAA Theatrical Market Statistics 2014
- 7. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
6
The ten clusters are described as: Tentpole, Animation, Tough Action, Drama,
Comedy, Horror, Indie Pop, Art-house, Faith-based, and Bollywood. A second
pass of the clustering algorithm was then applied, which resulted in the
breakdown of the Tentpole, Drama, Comedy, and Indie Pop clusters into
subclusters.
Once we had identified the clusters, we evaluated each moviegoer’s
preference for each one. Tentpole was the most popular cluster, with an
average preference value of 37% - meaning that the likelihood that the next
film they will see is a tentpole is roughly two in five; followed by Animation
(16%), Drama (14%), Comedy (14%), and Tough Action (11%).
In order to profile the audience that avoids blockbuster films, we partitioned
our sample of 1M moviegoers into two groups by their Tentpole preference.
We concentrate on the group, which we’ll call “niche”, whose preference for
these films was significantly less than average - for this research, we chose the
cutoff to be half of the average preference value, or 18.5%. The niche group
comprises 27% of the total sample, and compared with the “mainstream”
group - those members with an average Tentpole preference greater than
18.5% - is older (average age of 46 vs 37), more female (64% vs 47%), and
go to the movies less often (5.5 times per year vs 6.7).
The next step was to identify clusters and subclusters that were
overrepresented in the preferences of the niche group. We identified these
clusters by sorting the niche group based on their “favorite” subcluster -
i.e. the subcluster associated with each member’s highest preference.
The most popular clusters. The likelihood is approximately 2 in 5 that
the next film an average moviegoer sees will be a Tentpole.
A comparison of the mainstream and niche groups’ audience profiles.
- 8. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
7
This identified four significant groups:
1. Animation - 38% of the niche group vs 18% of the mainstream group
2. Tough Action - 20% of the niche group vs 12% of the mainstream group
3. Dramas Appealing to Female Baby-boomers - 15% of the niche group vs
2% of the mainstream group
4. Comedies Appealing to Millennial Women - 13% of the niche group vs 4%
of the mainstream group
As we outlined in the introduction, the purpose of this research was to
identify areas where there were opportunities to expand the moviegoing
population to populations that are underserved by content or marketing.
For this reason, we eliminated the first two groups from consideration as the
Animation cluster contains movies such as Minions and Inside Out, which are
simply another class of blockbuster, and the Tough Action cluster contains
a significant number of movies (34) that are well served by marketing
campaigns. Therefore, the remainder of this work will focus on subclusters
3 and 4 - Dramas Appealing to Female Baby-boomers and Comedies
Appealing to Millennial Women.
A comparison of mainstream
and niche groups’ preferences.
Mainstream Group
Niche Group
38%
18%
20%
12%
15%
2%
13%
4%
Animation
Tough Action
Dramas appealing to
Female Baby Boomers
Comedies appealing to
Millennial Women
- 9. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
8
First we consider the subcluster - Dramas Appealing to Female Baby-boomers.
This subcluster consists of 23 movies, including titles such as The Hundred-
Foot Journey, Gone Girl, A Walk in the Woods, The Second Best Exotic Marigold
Hotel, and The Imitation Game. In order to profile the audience for this genre,
we selected only the moviegoers from our sample that saw at least two movies
within the subcluster. This group comprised ~13% of the total sample, had an
average age of 55, and is 59% female. On average this group goes to the movies
almost once a month, and prefers to go early in the day (54% of visits before
5pm, compared to 42% for the total population).
In addition to profiling the audience, we also collected statistics on budget
and domestic and international gross whenever they were publicly available7
.
Based on the 23 movies in this subcluster for which we could find this
information, the average budget for a movie in this genre is $20M, while the
average worldwide gross is $73M, and the average Gross to Budget Ratio is 4.1.
Audience profile Gross to Budget RatioAge and gender distribution
$20 M
$73 M
Av. Budget
Av. WW Gross
4.1
Av. Gross to
Budget Ratio
7. Various sources, including IMDB, Box Office Mojo, and The Numbers.
Dramas Appealing to Female Baby-Boomers
- 10. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
9
Next, we consider the Comedies Appealing to Millennial Women subcluster.
This subcluster consists of 12 movies, including Spy, Trainwreck, and Fifty
Shades of Grey. The group of moviegoers that saw at least two of these films
made up ~13% of the total sample, had an average age of 38, and is 60%
female. Like the group above, these moviegoers go to the movies almost once
a month, but they prefer to go later in the evening, with only 34% of visit before
5pm. It is also worth noting that while the overall audience for this genre is
predominantly female, the subcluster does include some more male-focused
films such as Neighbors and A Million Ways to Die in the West.
These films performed even better than the previous group, with an average
budget of $33M, an average worldwide gross of $191M, and an average Gross
to Budget Ratio of 6.3.
Comedies Appealing to Millennial Women
$33 M
$191 M
Av. Budget
Av. WW Gross
Av. Gross to
Budget Ratio
6.3
Audience profile Gross to Budget RatioAge and gender distribution
- 11. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
10
Should Studios Target Women? We identified two clusters of movies with the following characteristics:
• they appeal to an audience that is not attracted to traditional tentpole films,
• they attract an audience that is a significant (>10%) fraction of moviegoers,
• and they are relatively profitable.
The two clusters appeal to very different audiences:
• one older and more likely to see movies during the day,
• and one younger and more likely to go at night,
• but both audiences are avid moviegoers and both are predominantly women.
This leads us to ask the question:
Should studios shift some of their resources to targeting women in order to
increase box office success?
It is well known that women are responsible for making many household
financial decisions, and across the cinema chains that participate in Movio
Media, 60% of the loyalty card holders are women. In addition, they are primarily
responsible for introducing children to the cinema, as women make up 57% of
the animated film audience. Further analysis of the financial information that
we’ve collected shows that of the 203 movies for which we could find financial
data, 45 had an audience that was more than 60% men, while 40 had an
audience that was greater than 60% women.
- 12. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
The male-dominated films had an average budget of $81M, an average
domestic gross of $66M, and an average worldwide gross of $209M, for an
average Gross to Budget Ratio of 2.3, whereas the female-dominated films
had an average budget of $25M, an average domestic gross of $55M, and an
average worldwide gross of $106M, for an average Gross to Budget Ratio of 5.1.
This trend is true even when we consider blockbusters, with the male-focused
superhero subcluster generating an average global Gross to Budget Ratio of
2.9, while the female-focused action subcluster centered on the Hunger Games
franchise returned an average Gross to Budget Ratio of 4.4. This suggests that
a shift in focus towards producing and marketing films to women could pay off
not only in incremental box office, but in blockbuster returns as well.
11
$81 M
$66 M
$209 M
$25 M
$55 M
$106 M
> 60% Male
45 movies
> 60% Female
40 movies
Av. Budget
Av. Domestic Gross
Av. WW Gross
Av. WW Gross
to Budget Ratio
5.12.3
Av. Blockbuster
Gross to Budget Ratio
2.9 4.4
A comparison of the financial performance of movies appealing to predominantly male or female audiences.
- 13. Copyright©2015MovioLimited.AllRightsReserved.AcompanyofVistaGroupInternationalLtd.
Movio is the global leader in marketing data analytics and campaign
management software for cinema exhibitors, film distributors and studios.
A company of Vista Group International Ltd (NZX:VGL, ASX:VGI), Movio’s mission is
to revolutionize the way the film industry interacts with moviegoers.
Movio Cinema, our flagship product, holds comprehensive marketing data
covering 52 percent of cinema screens of the Large Cinema Circuit in North
America (over 17,000 screens). Movio Media aggregates data across North
America to provide film distributors and studios comprehensive market data on
the behavior of typical moviegoers, crucial audience insights and innovative
campaign solutions. We maintain real-time, authoritative data on the loyalty
activity and transactions for many of the world’s biggest cinema chains and
capture the behavior of over 32 million active cinema loyalty members worldwide.
Website: www.movio.co
Twitter: @MovioHQ
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/movio
Telephone:
US +1 323 843 0456
EMEA +44 208 6345324
AUS / NZ +64 9 972 0093
MEXICO +52 55 5563 4860
CHINA +86 139 169 16000
