Monday, June 10, 2013

The Crystal Ball

... that we've all been waiting for.

... A whitepaper released [June 6] by the search giant’s Think Insights group called “Quantifying Movie Magic with Google Search” reveals that trailer-related searches done four weeks before a film’s premier can be used to determine opening weekend revenue. According to the paper, coupling that “key leading indicator” with the current movie season and a film’s “franchise status” — a metric that evaluates whether a movie is part of a top-tier franchise like James Bond films, or a “midnight” blockbuster like a Twilight film — can predict the box office take with 94 percent accuracy.

“While we’ve always known that trailers are an important aspect of the movie decision-making process, we were surprised at how strongly trailer search volume is linked to intent at this particular point in time,” Jennifer Prince, Google’s head of industry, media and entertainment, said in an email. “While news articles or movie reviews can give you the facts from another person’s perspective, movie trailers allow individuals to experience the film firsthand, and that’s what can really help a moviegoer form an opinion about a movie.” ...

It makes sense that in the age of the interweb, the Big Search Engine would be the big predictor for what movies succeed and which fail. My kid even uses it, in-between long sessions of internet gaming

(You can find the Google paper on the subject above right here.)

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