Measuring a movie's potential

How some Hollywood studios market and test films


Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn had his own way of determining whether a movie played well. Sitting in the screening room, he'd use his bottom as his guide. "This is a very good picture," the mogul once said, "but it is exactly 19 minutes too long. Exactly 19 minutes ago, my bottom started to itch, and right there, I know the audience would feel the same thing."

Such was the mindset that market research gurus Joe Farrell and Catherine Paura encountered when they headed to Hollywood in 1977. The task at hand: to bring the gut-oriented movie world up to the rest of American business when it came to product testing. Although data isn't the whole picture, they argued, only a fool ignores the audience. Conversant with the players and adept at handholding, they became an institution in a numbers-resistant town. He was a born salesman and she had strong organisational skills, but they eventually became interchangeable.

Through the years, the pair developed a virtual lock on the $100 million that studios spend annually to test their movies and costly promotional campaigns. Their National Research Group led movie executives down a path where they, like politicians, have faced criticism for being "survey-driven" - changing story lines, endings and pacing in response to findings. NRG data became a touchstone for studios laying out $90 million to produce and market an average film.

Having presided over this sea change, however, Farrell and Paura recently left the field to make movies for Disney. Their departure - along with increasing use of online data - represents a watershed for Hollywood. It's already changed the way some studios market and test films and created a free-for-all.

"It's the wild, wild West - and everyone is trying to take the reins," one studio marketing chief said.

While NRG (rebranded Nielsen NRG) remains the industry's gold standard, it's vying with challengers such as perennial No. 2 MarketCast, the computer-oriented OTX (Online Testing Exchange) and C.A. Walker, all eager to fill the void.

Shaking things up even more are changes on the technological front. Online research is replacing personal and telephone contacts in key aspects of the business.

"Change is scary," said Shelley Zalis, founder of OTX. "But I wanted to give companies that had been doing things the same way for 25 years tools that dig deeper into the moviegoer mindset. Every time there's a difference between traditional pencil-and-paper surveys and online predictions, online does better."

The new methodology is no substitute for recruited screenings, at which producers and directors "smell" an audience - taking in the laughs, the boos, the applause. Nor are post-screening focus groups.

But when it comes to evaluating promotional materials, proponents say, the online approach is faster and cheaper than interviewing people at malls. And it's more efficient than telephone surveys when assessing the awareness of - and interest in - a movie.

Dan Rosen, senior vice president of research at Warner Brothers., says that even before the departure of Farrell and Paura, he was exploring alternatives because "mall intercepts" and telephone polling became less viable in the 1990s.

"Anyone with an extra half-hour didn't represent the sample you were going after - the person in a hurry," he says of the shoppers interviewed. "...We're finally tapping into the Internet, like the rest of the research world."

OTX's Zalis, a self-described "computerphobe", was one of the first to realise the limits of traditional methodology and the potential of the Internet for movie research. In 1998, she helped develop online research for A.C. Nielsen, but, convinced that corporate culture and technological innovation didn't mesh, she created OTX - an independent entity within IFILM Corporation two and half years ago.

Warner Brothers and Sony were early supporters when only about one-third of US homes had Internet access. Now that it's double that, she works with most of the studios.

With online research, she says, you can interview more people for the same price and get a more representative sample. Although still in its infancy, online research has already revolutionised the field, says C.A. Walker president Sam Weinstein.

Kevin Yoder and Howard Ballon, who now run Nielsen NRG, don't take anything for granted. Having the largest database and history with the studios gives them a leg up. But now that the founders have exited the scene, they know it's a new horse race.

"We have to earn the business, building our core methodologies and bringing new tools into play," Yoder says.

Online research opened a world of possibilities for the studios, permitting more focused polling.

Online methodology also reduces the possibility of interviewer fraud and bias. It's also better able to reach the tough-to-penetrate youth market.

©Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service