The top studios take remarkably similar approaches to how they use online media to support movies releases-- despite the rapid evolution of how consumers use digital media. From the use of portals and search to actual budgets, flighting and weighting, opportunity exists for those who choose to innovate.
Portal dependence
Across the entertainment industry, the marketing of theatrical releases remains highly dependent on portal relations. Although the dominance of portals is declining, they are still key given their general interest reach.
- In 2006, six of the top seven studios (Disney, FOX, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner), consistently spend on the top three portals.*
- The exception is FOX, with MySpace dominating its every plan.
The entertainment industry's reliance on portals continues to be a solid strategy in spite of the dramatic shift in where consumers are spending time online.
- Nearly 90 percent of the audience that hits YouTube and MySpace are on the major portals. The main difference in 2006 is where they are spending time, according to Nielsen research.
- The major media players are urgently developing relationships and acquiring websites to secure a higher share of the time consumers spend online. This is a result of the dramatic rise of MySpace, YouTube and other social networking, video-sharing and user-generated content sites. Seismic changes were FOX's acquisition of MySpace and Google's acquisition of YouTube earlier this month.
- FOX will use MySpace to propel its entertainment titles into the social networking limelight. With its purchase of MySpace, FOX acquired a venue where many of the same consumers who are on the portals spend much of their time online, making its portal relationships less central.
- Google will use YouTube to enable social P2P sharing experiences. It will experiment with how to utilize the social elements of the internet to harness the power of the consumer and their evangelism and interest in entertainment. Google's purchase of YouTube is its strongest challenge to portal dominance to date.
Opportunities:
- Studios can grasp the opportunity to complement their portal buys and embrace "social video," as Forrester has dubbed it.
- They can leverage the shift from portal-sanctioned content to user-generated content by creating robust social networking, video-sharing and user-generated content strategies.
Paid and non-paid search
Across the entertainment industry, studios underutilize both paid and non-paid search.
- Of the 49 percent of moviegoers who actively research a movie after hearing about it through TV ads or word-of-mouth, 70 percent go to the web to get more information.**
- However, the majority of studios use paid search only for major releases. For Disney, FOX, Sony, and Warner, paid search accounts for less than 1 percent of total impressions. MGM has no recorded paid search impressions.
- Only Paramount and Universal use paid search across all releases (7 percent and 3 percent of their online ad impressions, respectively).
- Meanwhile, few studios comprehensively use video search sites such as Yahoo! Video and Google Video, or video-sharing sites, to post movie trailers and video content for free.
Opportunities:
- Studios should expand the use of paid search.
- Currently available tier 2 words include: in theaters now, movie times, movies, new movie releases, buy tickets, new dvds, et cetera.
- Studios can also leverage their affiliate and channel partners who are already purchasing "buy now" keywords for their theaters.
- Especially for independent or smaller releases playing in harder to find theaters, search is an under-utilized asset.
- On the non-paid search front, entertainment and other companies have an enormous amount of "content exhaust" such as deleted scenes, outtakes, et cetera, that should be positioned on video-sharing and video search sites.
Budget allocation
While there is a distinct disparity between consumer Internet usage and studio spend, the Studios consistently allocate impressions in direct correlation to expected opening weekend box office.
- Using Box Office Mojo we reviewed expected opening weekend box office versus total number of ad impressions: higher box expectations = higher impressions.
- While studios spend 2.6 percent of their total marketing budgets online, more than 50 percent of moviegoers used the internet to find movie schedules and theater locations-- more than all other sources combined. Seventeen percent said the internet was the most influential medium in deciding what film to see.**
Opportunities:
- Given this consistent correlation, depending on how a movie indexes online, studios can stand out by heavying up or decreasing online spend.
- Studios can also break through by allocating a higher percentage of the media mix to online.
- Finally, they can focus on non-paid online marketing. "Snakes on a Plane," while a box office disappointment, is proof that courting authentic fan involvement effectively leverages digital communities.
Flighting and weighting
All of the studios reviewed except Sony deploy similar flighting and weighting strategies to maximize opening weekend box office.
- The 2006 standard is a seven to eight week pre-release flight for tent-poles and four to five weeks for B and C titles, with three to five weeks post-release. The exception is Sony, which consistently has longer flighting plans (e.g., 23 weeks pre-release and 6 post-release for "The Da Vinci Code").
- The vast majority of titles ran more than 90 percent of total impressions pre-release, with 50 percent or more of impressions the week of release.
Opportunities:
- Shake up pre- and post-release flighting and weighting. Studios can apply the recent Dynamic Logic findings and drive buzz four to eight weeks out, and then shift strategy.
- A virtually untapped marketing opportunity is consumers who do not plan to see a movie on opening weekend. They can be influenced by post-release ads when they are making their decision. Pointroll's research tells us that 42 percent of consumers make same-day movie choices.
- Studios can innovate and build plans that allow for surprise hits, critical acclaim and better than expected opening weekend box office.
To break through the clutter, the studios need to seize each of these opportunities. The next challenge will be to create strategies that develop synergies across portals, social video and search and to revisit budgets, flighting and weighting to get and stay ahead of the competition.
Susan MacDermid is vice president of strategy and Christopher Compton is senior director of business development, overseeing Real Branding's research practice.
Sources:
* Real Branding proprietary review of the paid online advertising of 61 theatrical releases from Disney, FOX, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. January - August 2006 utilizing Nielsen/NetRatings AdRelevence, Box Office Mojo, and Google Trends. ** Google Study: Internet Moviegoers, Sept. 22, 2006.
