Former Research Scientist and Senior Manager at New Zealand’s Tech Innovation Agency Joins Pre-Eminent Cinema Data Analytics Company To Help Exhibitors and Studios Maximise Moviegoer Connection

Auckland, NZ - June 24, 2015 – Movio, the global leader in marketing data, analysis, insights, and campaign creation and management for theatrical exhibitors, studios and film distributors, has appointed Dr. Bryan Smith as the company's Chief Data Scientist.  A computational scientist with research and management experience, Dr. Smith most recently was Research Group Manager, Information & Communications Technologies at Callaghan Innovation, the New Zealand government agency, which commercialises technical innovation of New Zealand companies. The announcement was made today by Will Palmer, Movio’s Chief Executive and Co-founder.

Callaghan Innovation gives businesses a single front door to the innovation system in New Zealand, working in partnership with government agency New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, economic development agencies, business incubators, universities, polytechnics, Crown Research Institutes, the venture capital community and industry associations.

Dr. Smith, who worked with Movio during his tenure at Callaghan, has a B.S.E. degree in Biomedial Engineering and Mathematics from Tulane University and Masters' and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University in Chicago. He will head all research in statistics, science, and analytics at Movio, concentrating on the development of new products that utilise Movio’s global moviegoer database to generate analytical insights. He will report directly to Peter Beguely, Chief Product Officer and co-founder of Movio.

"Dr. Smith is a world-class data scientist and mathematician as well as a superlative manager," said Palmer. "His expertise is a game changer for Movio and will help lead our growth as film exhibitors and studios gradually realize that big data on their customers’ choices are invaluable, revenue-deriving assets."

"Movio is an ideal fit for me," added Dr. Smith.  "It has interesting, established and innovative products with obvious potential for improvement utilizing ever more sophisticated analytics, but is still of the size that I feel that one person can make a real difference."

As moviegoers are faced with a growing number of choices for how, where and when they watch films, Movio's mission is to help the film industry better understand consumer behaviour and deliver practical, personalised offers to moviegoers through their preferred communication channels. Movio's data analysis-driven software solutions make it faster and less expensive to analyse and use that data to increase customer satisfaction and enhance the digital cinema experience.

Most recently, Movio signed a multiyear partnership with AMC Theatres, the U.S.'s second-largest theatre chain, aimed at promoting movies, particularly smaller-budget, indie and foreign titles. AMC will combine data from its social media following and its loyalty program, AMC Stubs, with Movio Cinema, Movio’s analytics and targeted marketing software-as-a-service solution.  With this arrangement, personalised content such as movie trailers, movie news, special promotions, opening-date information and show times can be delivered across the guests’ emails, mobile devices and social media.