At ILM West: Hollywood Shows the Way

BIA/Kelsey Research Director Steve Marshall capped Day 2 with consecutive interviews with two Digital Hollywood insiders. Doug Neil, SVP digital marketing for Universal Pictures; and Jordan Glazer, CEO Eventful.

First up was Neil, who runs online and mobile strategies for the film studio. He has managed digital marketing for more than 120 films.

Here’s an excerpt from their discussion.

How are campaigns customized per film?

Every film is unique. We do 15 to 18 films a year, each has a distinct target audience. There is some overlap, but we have to have unique programs for what we do.

What are digital market budgets for the average film?

It depends on the film, and on the target audience. A movie release will have a $15 million to $40 million per film total market. Online averages 10 percent but is sometimes as much as 20 percent of the total marketing budget.

Is mobile’s share of the total increasing?

Absolutely. It was an afterthought seven years ago. Now there is a team that focuses on mobile marketing.

Looking at all the media at Universal’s disposal, how do you decide the mix?

Again, driven by the audience we are trying to reach. Les Miserable has a substantial local print buy, because the audience does skew a little older. Pitch Perfect had no print. The next Fast and Furious movie will be mostly online.

Do you monitor online commentary?

Absolutely. After the first screening of Les Miserable, were on twitter for 24 hours tracking reactions. As we do more screenings, we compare the response by market.

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Next up was Jordan Glazer, CEO of Eventful. Eventful is a global platform for local event content.

Where do local acts fit into your ecosystem?

When we embarked upon the challenge of aggregated the most comprehensive data set around events, the head of the tail was movie times, etc. But the majority of content is hyper local. Wine tastings and local performing arts.

How do you target?

We know not just zip code or gender or age, we have a lot of data on what they like. From what they tell us and from our own observation. And we have built technology to take advantage of all that data.

We worked with Universal on reaching a faith based audience for the film Charlie St. Cloud, for example. One thing we can look at is, “Who likes Christian rock?”

How does Eventful make money?

Our service is free to consumers. We license event content, but the bulk of our revenue comes from advertising among entertainment marketers.

What about personalization?

In our email marketing program, we send our weekly events guides. Over the last 12 months, we began to personalize each email to the recipient…”Segment of one” is a very 80’s as a term, but we are finally able to deliver a completely unique content experience. And that will continue.