Deciding how and when to spend marketing dollars for future theatrical releases can be a challenge, now more so than ever with the rapid change in consumer behaviour accelerated by the pandemic. However, at Movio we know that analysing historical audience data can reveal how content, marketing channels, messaging and release timing affects theatrical attendance, both in terms of audience composition and moviegoing behaviour. This belief underpins our Movio Research console, delivering timely insights to our studio clients so they’re in a better position to understand the audience for their films, refine future release plans, and be efficient with marketing spend. 

While Movio Research delivers a comprehensive and detailed set of insights around moviegoer behaviour, we wanted to be able to provide the wider industry with a clear, quick and timely snapshot of audiences every week. And so our Weekend Insights analysis was established. Previously published every Monday, Weekend Insights provided the entire industry with insights into the top film choices by moviegoer segment, at the US box office every weekend. The audience was broken down by three broad demographic segments (Millennials, Gen X and 50+), with moviegoer gender also overlaid, allowing users to understand the audience makeup for movies on any given weekend. 

With the pause in theatrical releases and closed cinemas, this also meant a disruption to our weekly insights. However, this gave our Data Science team time to re-evaluate the approach to providing these insights, improve the delivery and add more audience segments into the analysis. We’re therefore excited this week to launch the new and improved Weekend Insights analysis to the industry.

Weekend Insights now includes a Gen Z audience segment and insights are available earlier, while still providing a quick and high level view of the actual audience that drove box office for the weekend. The analysis also includes a comparison with the previous weekend and whether specific audience segments attendance was up or down or potentially underserved. With more and more exciting titles being released, with cinemas reopened and content releasing again, Weekend Insights allows the entire industry to once again understand which films are resonating with which audiences. 

Keep an eye out for further enhancements to our Weekend Insights page, like the addition of UK moviegoer data. Until then, discover the latest insights here.