Boost Your Box Office Featuring JustWatch Media - Full
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00:00So, first of all, David, welcome to Los Angeles now that you've got an office out here.
00:06I think most people know Just Watch strictly as sort of a consumer app.
00:13It's obviously so much more as we saw in that video.
00:15So explain the business and what you're doing out here in LA to evolve it.
00:20Yeah, it's great.
00:22Great to be here.
00:23Yeah.
00:24I think many people stopped me already when they saw my name tag and that they used the
00:27app and love the app, but nobody really heard of this best kept secret of Just Watch Media.
00:33That's our business side.
00:34And what we do there is we use all the data we gather on the app and all the insights we
00:38have to the YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and digital campaigns.
00:43And we actually worked on 93% of all global studio titles somewhere in the world last
00:49year.
00:51So it's either one market somewhere in Europe or it's five or 10, sometimes over 20 markets.
00:56The only market we didn't work in really is the US.
00:59So that's why I'm here and I want to change that.
01:01Okay.
01:02And let's dig a little deeper into what exactly it is you're doing.
01:08What data you're getting and where it heads.
01:12So I love movies and TV shows and my background is in ad tech and data and technology.
01:18And I got like 10 years ago when we started a company, I got like a lot of horror trailers
01:23on YouTube as ads and I hate horror.
01:26But I like rom-coms but nobody knows because I'm not in the socio-demographic.
01:31So I never got those trailers and missed some movies at the cinema.
01:34So I didn't like that and I thought you need data to really know about taste instead of socio-demographics.
01:40And then it's really about having them on scale and fresh data all the time.
01:45So that's why we have two sides of the business.
01:47One is the consumer side.
01:48Just watch the streaming guide where we have the app live in 140 markets, 60 million unique
01:54users.
01:55And out of those, we create rich data profiles of what people actually watch and where they
02:00watch it.
02:01And that's kind of like what we use on the big platforms to run trailer campaigns.
02:07And the data is really about taste mostly and consumption.
02:10If people want to wait for streaming, if they want to go to cinema and all these different
02:14windows and we work on all of them.
02:17And so how do you work with the studios?
02:21Because when we're talking about marketing and films, there's an elaborate multi-year run-up.
02:29Where does Just Watch fit strategically in that run-up?
02:35We are at the last, last part of it.
02:37So that's where a lot of money gets wasted, unfortunately.
02:40So there's all the news and everything about the stars and Hollywood and this is really
02:44what you read everywhere and we are in the last six weeks mostly.
02:49So this is where all the money gets spent before the release weekend and there's a lot
02:54of research, a lot of briefings.
02:56Let me give you an example.
02:57So we got a briefing from a big streamer that is a client of ours about a show like many years
03:02ago.
03:03That was really, it's a gory 18 to 44 year old superhero show and it's pretty niche.
03:11So let's see what you can do with it.
03:13And we also run integrated market research and surveys on our audiences.
03:17So we did that and found out it's not that niche, it's not that male, it's not that young.
03:22It was everybody basically.
03:23And in the end we saw that and were able to invest 60% of our budgets outside of the original
03:31briefing coming from all this classic focus groups.
03:34And this was like a big show that probably almost everybody watched and it's like in the several
03:41seasons now.
03:42And this is like how we use our data to really understand what people really want to watch
03:47instead of what people think they like to watch in Hollywood.
03:50So we like to have this actionable insights and the data and real time data to really optimize
03:56media, especially from trailer break to the main phase of the release campaign, then down
04:01to TVOT through all the windows.
04:04I mean, it sounds pretty efficient in terms of, you know, subject one right now in the film
04:12business is probably being as efficient as possible with your marketing dollars.
04:17So how do you help solve for that with Just Watch Media?
04:21Yeah, I was just at CinemaCon and I remember this one slide that we had also in the little
04:25reel here that said we lost 10% of the box office on the top 20 movies before the pandemic
04:32to now.
04:33And we lost, I think it was 32% on the next 80.
04:38So it's really about the mid-sized movies and things where you have to be much, much more
04:42granular in targeting and really find the right people.
04:44Having this data point is really, really crucial.
04:47It's not just taste, but it's also like people go to the cinema.
04:50Most people say, Hollywood, we have to reach everybody with a movie.
04:54It doesn't matter how big the movie actually is.
04:57But when you look at the data, 30 million people in the US are responsible for 60, sometimes
05:0370% of the box office.
05:04So it's really about a rather small group, most of you here and me, that actually buy most
05:10of the tickets and knowing who those are and having them at the core of the campaign
05:14and reaching them more efficiently than to actually watch your trailer.
05:17You can get campaigns that deliver 50% more trailer views for the same money.
05:22If you know how to run it, be digital first.
05:25And that's our DNA.
05:27Have performance marketing DNA and have the data to really, really hit people on scale
05:31at the right moment when the trailer hits.
05:34And when they really have to buy a ticket instead of playing a mobile game or doing all the other
05:40distractions you can do.
05:42Like you said, the movie audience is a shrinking group, but still sizable enough to contain lots
05:49of different demographics, psychographics.
05:52So how does your data enable, like how targeted can you get?
05:58I could get, you know, 19-year-olds who are left-handed in Illinois.
06:03Like how granular do we speak in here?
06:06I mean, we go more for taste.
06:08We have like 125 standardized taste audiences, especially subgenres.
06:12We have like a cult retro horror or raunchy female comedy.
06:15And really, whose people are there, we can target on any movie.
06:20On any movie that is in the comps list, we find an audience and find people that have
06:24the same taste.
06:25So it's really about hitting the right reason for people to like something and what their
06:31taste is.
06:31And data can work really well on that.
06:33It's basically recommendation engines.
06:36There was a lot of talk about AI.
06:38I really like the panel, but there is also a lot of buzzwords.
06:41Recommendation engines are there for the last 15 years to say, like, if you like this
06:45movie, you will like that movie.
06:46And we go deeper and find out why they like that movie.
06:49If you click a lot on the Just Watch app, we learn a lot what you really like versus
06:53what you might post on Instagram or early on Facebook, because I wouldn't post that I
07:00like rom-coms online.
07:01Now I'm saying it out loud, but this is something that a lot of people don't do.
07:05But on Just Watch, they have their watch list, they search for titles, and that's the truth,
07:09what they actually consume.
07:10And that's what we really care about.
07:12But everything else comes second when it comes to demographics and saying, like, I want
07:17to skew a female or older or younger or something like that.
07:21And so on the Just Watch, on the platform, the way you're getting this data, it's not
07:27just about people entering in the things they're interested in watching.
07:34You're also doing things like surveys and other kinds of things to get at this information?
07:38So I think when we started campaigns, we tried to use all the media metrics that you can
07:43get from all the big platforms when you run big-scale campaigns.
07:48There are just too many, actually.
07:50And viewthrough rate is this quality metric that everybody wants a good viewthrough rate.
07:53People, of course, should watch the trailer.
07:55But we correlated it to, like, millions and millions of trailer views or billions by now.
08:01And there was no correlation if somebody watches a trailer to the end, that they buy a ticket
08:05more often than somebody who watches a trailer to half.
08:08So all these media metrics, there is zero correlation.
08:10And that was, like, in 2017 when we started to say, like, hey, we have to prove that we are better
08:15at this with the data.
08:16But everybody loves to just watch trailer.
08:19There's so much noise in the data because it's content that people rather watch content
08:23on YouTube than watching an ad that they don't want to see.
08:27And this is something that is good and bad for the industry.
08:30You get cheap trailer views because people enjoy it and the viewthrough rates are high.
08:34But you have no clue if people want to wait for a different window or if they actually
08:38will buy a ticket later.
08:40So we started on the same audience that we built for a movie.
08:43We run on a sample size of a few thousand people.
08:46We run surveys on the same platforms and ask them, do you want to go to see this movie at
08:51the cinema?
08:52Pretty simple.
08:53And then we get something that we call cinema intent.
08:55And on the cinema intent, we have, like, a really, really high correlation that if an audience
08:59says, yes, I will see this at the cinema, box office will be high.
09:04If they have a lower viewthrough rate or higher viewthrough rates, we have this all over the place.
09:07There is nothing about a cinema intent.
09:09We see really, really well which audience, if it niche or broad, has a high cinema intent
09:14and a low awareness.
09:16And then we optimize, basically, from week to week where to invest the money, where to
09:21increase the frequency, where to put your trailer, basically.
09:24Because we know we can basically see with this KPI that we created over basically 9, 10 years
09:30now.
09:31And we have benchmarks everywhere.
09:32And this is something that helps us to really see outside of engagement metrics or other metrics
09:39that don't correlate to anything.
09:40And this does, we do the same for streaming.
09:43So we have watch intent, we have sign-up intent, or we have TVOT purchase intent.
09:47So we can really go for these intents and see this within, like, basically real time,
09:52what audience you really want to hit and which audience maybe saw the trailer too often already.
09:56And they will go anyways.
09:57If you have a James Bond, you want to exclude a lot of people.
10:00And what got brought on other titles, he wanted to just try to find your core audience.
10:05So it's always about this bullseye of having a core audience and then going broader until
10:08you see your money is wasted.
10:11So how much should you focus on which group?
10:13That's in the end, our bread and butter.
10:17There's no virality or we don't make a movie go from zero to 100.
10:20But I think every data point we had, I think with the same budget that there is right now,
10:26we do around 7%, 8% more box office.
10:29So it sounds pretty small.
10:31But if there are CFOs in the room, probably not.
10:33They are really excited about that.
10:35But this is really what you can do.
10:37You can be so much better on views, reaching the right audience,
10:41and then actually having more ticket sales because we tracked a lot in Europe.
10:44And we want to do the same here.
10:46And when you talk about optimization, is there, you know,
10:50once the campaign starts, is the studio in dialogue with Just Watch
10:56or on some sort of Just Watch dashboard where they're able to sort of fine-tune
11:01as results come in?
11:03Yeah, 100%.
11:03So we work with the agencies normally and are booked through them
11:07and work really closely that they do the overall planning
11:09and we do the digital buying.
11:10So probably 80%, 90% of the digital budget goes through us then
11:13in the activation and planning.
11:16And we have weekly calls.
11:17We have constant updates and recommendations.
11:20We give in.
11:21And there's also, like, the data part, like, just throwing more data at them doesn't help.
11:25They have too many meetings anyway.
11:26I was, like, in meetings all week here in Hollywood and I try to do more.
11:30So this is something where they have too many meetings anyway
11:33and we want to give them recommendations.
11:34They're, like, option one or two.
11:36What do you want to choose?
11:38We would go for one.
11:39Focus more on this group and do this or that.
11:42So that's what our team constantly does with the agency so that they can optimize week over week
11:46going closer to the box office.
11:49And when the tracking is bad, what should I do?
11:51So these calls, we get a lot.
11:54And then, yeah, it's constant back and forth.
11:58And so in terms of the kind of data that you're getting in,
12:05well, I guess what I'm curious about is,
12:08is this something that is actionable even, you know, post-release of a movie
12:17or you're strictly in that six-week pre-release period?
12:21I mean, it depends.
12:22Most of us, I think, 99% is pre-release when it comes to theatrical.
12:26When we do, like, with our streaming clients, of course,
12:28this is, like, a little bit turned around.
12:30They have at least 50% normally after the release weekend
12:34because you can directly watch it with one click.
12:36And for theatrical in the first window,
12:39you really have to build the awareness until Thursday, basically.
12:43And that's it.
12:44So we do most of it there.
12:45But there are sustain budgets when we say, like,
12:47we still see people that wanted to see it but didn't convert yet.
12:51And just, like, do another sustain campaign for a week or two.
12:54Or when a movie starts to really get lags or is it an award campaign,
12:58we also go longer often.
13:01So targeting is the name of the game here.
13:04I assume, though, you're not the only tool in the targeting shed.
13:10But what makes Just Watch sort of a different –
13:13what differentiates Just Watch from other digital targeting options?
13:18So it's really about three things that we do.
13:23One is media efficiency, just get more views out of Google and Facebook.
13:27I don't know if the people from Google are still here.
13:30But that's – we basically see, like, we come from a performance marketing background.
13:34So we get the last ounce – I think it's what you say in the US –
13:38the last ounce of views and impressions out of the platforms.
13:42And this alone can give you 20, 30, 40 percent more trailer views from the same budget.
13:47So that's first.
13:48Just get your money to work more.
13:51The second one is, like, if you know somebody who likes the taste but doesn't go to the cinema.
13:56So really having the right audiences and hitting the right ones.
13:59Because, as I said, everybody likes to watch trailers and you can't take them –
14:03like, see who is who if you don't have the data on scale.
14:06The third one is then really having this cinema intent KPI early on
14:11to know which audience might be overpenetrated already and you don't have to reach them
14:15and which audience is maybe an extension audience.
14:17Like on the example I shared earlier that people didn't think about
14:21but that you can actually test before.
14:24You'd make these surveys without running media on them
14:26and then you can tell the client, hey, there is another audience you can go for.
14:31Let's go for the anime fans for your horror movie, whatever, but it works.
14:35And then we give them also these options to extend
14:38because we have this KPI that really let us see how broad or how narrow a movie actually is
14:43and not what people like it to be but what really the real-time data tells us.
14:49Well, it's a pretty fascinating tool.
14:51I wish you the best of luck as you expand out into the US.
14:55It was great being here.
14:57All right.