Whose Tracking Is It Anyway?
In trying to offer some perspective on box office prediction madness, the Los Angeles Times’ John Horn, a guy who has been around and smart for a long time, takes us further down the rabbit hole.
He writes:
Every weekend, the studios turn to three research firms to help predict upcoming box-office numbers. The companies — IAG Research, OTX and the National Research Group — conduct different surveys, but their numbers all try to answer the same question: Are moviegoers interested in a new release?
The data is called tracking, and throughout the week (but especially on Thursday and Friday), marketing and distribution executives sift through the numbers as closely as a desperate 49er panning for gold.
First, instead of getting into why tracking from all three companies is inherently flawed, he just kind of accepts that they are chasing a goal. But their goal is not primarily to find out if moviegoers are interested in a new release. The primary goal is to find out if the tens of millions in marketing and publicity is hitting the mark as it rolls out.
The simple reason for the Tyler Perry being so drastically off of the tracking number is that telephone surveying does a piss poor job of finding black audiences and hispanic audiences, just as it fails to find the audience under 22 week after week after week. Smart studio execs with a history with tracking can read around those numbers and see how they are doing with their marketing… which again, is the only real goal. Everyone likes to know the future… but studios need to feel they are spending millions and millions of dollars as efficiently as they can. It’s not about being Carnac.
Alleged journalists who now want to tell everyone they “have tracking” and that they know what it means are simply misleading the public for their own self-aggrandizement. This brings me to Horn’s second terrible misstep in his piece.
Again, “The data is called tracking, and throughout the week (but especially on Thursday and Friday), marketing and distribution executives sift through the numbers as closely as a desperate 49er panning for gold.”
They are panning on Thursday and Friday the week BEFORE opening. If they are sifting for anything on the day of release or the day before, it is only for their upcoming success or humiliation. But the real work of tracking is done when marketers can do something with the information. If you are “panning for gold” on opening day, it is, as any marketer will tell you, fool’s gold. Too late. The ship has sailed. Moreover, on opening day, execs are getting reports from actual business on the east coast, then across the country as the day progresses. And even at 7p, when the east coast has early evening numbers coming in, it’s still not anything more than 80% sure. And even on Saturday morning, when Friday estimates are pretty clear, the weekend still has major variations to come.
Of course, reading the story, perhaps all of that soft information about tracking is just a rationalization to allow the LA Times to start sifting through the numbers as closely as a desperate 49er panning for gold each week. Historically, sifting like that would be embarrassing to a savvy veteran like Horn. I can’t say I disagree with that sentiment.
As the Box Office saga goes on and on, played out like a Gladiator sporting event ever week, it saddens me that the actual discussion of films is slowly disappearing.
What would all these people do if the studios simply stopped reporting the grosses?
What a breath of fresh air it would be to not have that black cloud hanging over every film every weekend. I know this is an old conversation…but really…how can it get any better from here when all the attention is so not focused on the quality of the film itself?
Waaaa! My name’s modernknife. Waaaaaaaaa!!
Way to add to the conversation.
How about if you just made a good picture and advertised it?
Good or bad, marketing is what drives box office now, at least for the first week. If making a good picture was enough, great movies would be making more, no?
oy, I thought I was done discussing this one thread over. And this time it’s even worse because its not just “why do we care about box office” instead it’s “why do we care about box office when we should care about quality”. Christ. Use you brain.