UNIVERSAL PICTURES - Owen Myles, Senior Director, Global Research & Analytics. Marketing iconic movies like "Wicked" and "Jurassic World"; adapting to the post-pandemic landscape; navigating agency/ client relationships; insights from the BBC and Sony.

Very topical this week for all you WICKED fans - we have on Owen Myles of Universal Pictures, explaining how film studios adjust their marketing in relation to a film’s likely performance. Owen also adds in some great lessons from his time at other brands and agencies, as well as a refreshing twist on what makes a good brand/ agency relationship.  Among other areas we cover:

• Lessons from Kantar, Sony Europe and BBC Worldwide
• Juggling 20+ launches per year
• Integration of traditional and new measures to anticipate success
• Differences between U.S. and international approaches
• The state of the film industry post Covid

With call outs to Chris Massey, Henry Heywood, David Boyle and thanks to Insight Platforms for their support and to MX8 Labs for sponsoring.

.

All episodes available at https://www.insightplatforms.com/podcasts/

Suggestions, thoughts etc to futureviewpod@gmail.com

Chapters

• 1:02 Guest intro
• 2:31 Gracing the fields of Buckingham Palace
• 4:10 Learning from TNS. Sony Europe and the BBC
• 15:23 Projecting movie success in international markets
• 26:51 The state of the movie market as a whole
• 36:07 What's going to remain consistent and what may change
• 38:14 What makes a good agency partner

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

there's sensitivities, I get that. But what I learned from previous agency is that only when there is a really healthy level of transparency and a healthy level of trust and you're seeing that agency team as your extended arm of your kind of in-house research team, the real things start to happen and and they and then they get your business and and and collectively you're you're better as a whole, rather than two kind of independent teams.

Speaker 2: 0:43

So yeah, I think it's a great answer. Your agencies will love you for that answer. You're almost saying there's no such thing as a good or bad agency.

Speaker 1: 0:54

It's all down to the way the client treats them. I swerved that one, Henry, quite nicely, didn't I?

Speaker 2: 0:57

You did swerve it very nicely, but now we need to see if you can swerve this one or not. Well, it's a very topical episode this week, given that Wicked is breaking box office records. I recommend you go and see it, and I'm delighted to have on Owen Miles, who is Senior Director of Global Research and Analytics at Universal Pictures. Universal are the studio behind Wicked, as well as a host of other film releases, ranging from huge properties so Oppenheimer, jurassic World, fast and Furious as well as more genre-focused or indie-type releases such as the Blumhouse horror movies, cocaine Bear, the forthcoming Nostradamus. You get the picture. It's a lot of content and marketing to keep track of, and that's part of the reason why I wanted to have Owen on.

Speaker 2: 1:39

The film research world is incredibly fast-moving and varied, and it's adopted a range of unique approaches to evaluate marketing effectiveness in a very timely and practical manner. So Owen was kind enough to come on and share some of what Universal are doing in that space, as well as his experiences and learnings from the likes of TNS Nath, kantar, sony Electronics and the BBC. I'm also going to take just a second to give a shout out to mx8labscom. I've talked enough in this intro, but I won't bang on about them too much now. Suffice to say, it's a great backend platform for survey research, including the ability to run data queries in everyday English, and they've been kind enough to sponsor this episode. On to the interview Owen, so good to see you. It's been a while since I've seen you in person, but fantastic to have you on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Thanks, Henry. Yeah, really great to speak to you. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this.

Speaker 2: 2:32

Yeah, me too. We've been chin-wagging away and catching up beforehand. But let's not get too distracted. Let's at least stick to the schedule that we've planned for a moment and ask the usual first question, which is something that people might not know about you or might find surprising, so something that isn't easily available on the internet.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Not too many people outside of my broader friendship group know this, but I was actually fortunate enough to play an official league match at Buckingham Palace. It was the 150th centenary year for the FA and as part of that they invited my club at the time, civil Service FC, which is one of the oldest amateur clubs in the UK, along with another club in the league, to basically play an official league game at Buckingham Palace. So the Buckingham palace kind of ground staff, if you will like, liaised with the guy who looks after wembley's pitch and they made sure that the pitch was suitable, got it, you know, got it up, match fit effectively the lawn that is in the garden, and then invited howard webb as well, who was still officiating Premier League games at the time as well, to come along and ref us. Yeah, we lost, which put a bit of a downer on the day, but other than that it was a. It was a unbelievable experience.

Speaker 2: 3:56

Now I could ask you so many questions about that, but we should probably jump on to the world of movies and that just get a sense of your career as well, and I wanted to do just a quick whistle-stop tour in terms of the various companies you've worked with there have been some great companies along the way and what you learned and anybody you'd like to call out who was really helpful in terms of getting you going in the research world.

Speaker 1: 4:24

To be honest, I took a fairly traditional route from kind of agency to client side, but I think everybody that does it looks back at it with like really cherishes that kind of opportunity in terms of going to a great agency like TNS they were called at the time I think they're now Kansar and cutting my teeth on numerous clients and and you get to work with so many different people, you get to kind of learn the ins and outs of the inner workings of different clients, like at the time we were, we were working with people like tesco's and comet and walworth's, who are no longer with us but yeah, yeah, it was just yeah, just a thoroughly great experience and just kind of yeah, shout out. One of the people that I looked up to a lot was Henry Haywood. I know he's doing great guns still at Kantar and stuff. He was a great role model in terms of the thoroughness, and not only the kind of the thoroughness in terms of like the the end to end project management, but also just a really nice guy and a great presenter as well, and and someone that I always looked up to.

Speaker 1: 5:35

But I think for me, a lot of the reasons why people move on from a from an agency side is that they're kind of delivering that, what ultimately tends to be a presentation, and then you're not really sure after you've delivered that, where, where that presentation goes or how it's being kind of used or activated upon within within the company. So I was like, yeah, I just want to be part of that, because I feel like I'm you know, you're busting your guts to generate these amazing presentations and then you're kind of like here you go and you go yeah, I think that went well. Like I think that you, I think you're kind of like here you go and you go yeah, I think that went well. I think they're kind of like using it, they're talking about it, and then where does it kind of?

Speaker 2: 6:11

go after a week or so that you delivered it. So, yeah, it's interesting you say that I've been stealing this phrase from one of the interviews in this series around how good agencies give you the so what, but the client side you have to move on to the now what. Yeah, and that's really really different, yeah but, what did you do next, owen? Where do you? Was it sony next in terms of your career? I joined sony europe.

Speaker 1: 6:38

So they were based in, they still are. I think they're based in weybridge. So basically sony kind of international looking after within research team, within the international marketing function function, looking after kind of all of the all of the electronic products across the sony portfolio, so anything from dslr cameras to tvs to um speakers. So yeah, like great kind of first introduction to client-side workings and especially kind of eye-opening because it's a Japanese company and with lots of fellow Japanese workers who fortunately we were in an international team but working alongside our Japanese colleagues as well, which was an amazing experience for me, and what did you pick up there out of interest?

Speaker 2: 7:29

I mean, have you got some examples of the types of working practices that you picked up on from your Japanese colleagues that were useful?

Speaker 1: 7:37

Yeah, I mean they like they were, they're really, they're really engaged in terms of like research. They want they want to be able to kind of hang on to data, to be able to back up some of their decisions, which, as a researcher, you're like great, we've got an engaged audience, which is perfect. But it's a bit of a double-edged sword at the same time, because they're kind of like they're leaning much more towards like data and we'll get on to this later in the conversation but it's much more data-driven decisions and less gut rather than a balance that we're looking for between kind of gut and data at the same time. So and I'm I'd imagine it's changed by now but like how there was a way how they think we should sell products. We need to tell the consumer that there's a thousand different functions of this camera, because everybody needs to know that there's a thousand different functions for this camera.

Speaker 1: 8:37

And as a research team, we were like well, that's not true for every single buyer. What you need to sell them is the benefit, like if you've got Great Zoo, how does that help you? Or if you've got, you know, battery Life, how does that help you? So there was a level of kind of jarring where we're like. You don't need to say everything on the packaging.

Speaker 2: 9:02

You just need to express the benefits, and then onto the BBC, another very distinctive organization.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Yeah, so it was within the commercial arm of the BBC, so back then it was called BBC Worldwide. I think it's BBC Studios now and I was kind of looking after the various brand trackers that we were running for some of our household names, like BBC Earth, bbc News, dancing with the Stars or Strictly we know it in this country Doctor who, top Gear at the time as well. So, yeah, your standard kind of your more kind of fundamental brand tracking of like taking the temperature across various markets of where the brand sits. But I think the beauty of the time spent there was that it was a very it ended up being a very different model to in terms of like research and how we gather research and insight and share that with the company with with david boyle on board was very much um, I know, david, yeah, I've interviewed, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, a great guy and along with richard as well, who were no, you, yeah, both fantastic in terms of steering the ship at that time much more towards the democratization of data so effectively.

Speaker 1: 10:15

Why should the research team collect all this data and then spend days and days pouring over the data to generate a PowerPoint and then share it back to that same team when, effectively, we can collect the data, we can put it onto a dashboard and then we can allow or sit by colleagues across the business who can dial into that data and make decisions instantly from that data, rather than having to rely constantly on the research team to kind of filter that information to them.

Speaker 1: 10:45

So, again, very, very different model to what I've been using at Sony where, because the team was so small, we had to lean much more on agencies and they were seen as very much the extended team, if you like, those agencies. So, with BBC Worldwide, it was much more kind of roll up your sleeves and, you know, send out the questions yourself, to work much more closely with panel providers to get the data back, churn through the data and work it that way. So, yeah, I mean at the time it was incredibly innovative and new and different and you know the business really really took hold of it. And you know the business really really took hold of it. So, yeah, it was, yeah, really steep learning curve from a different kind of perspective coming from Sony as well. But yeah, great to work on some of those household brands as well.

Speaker 2: 11:45

And then you moved on to another very well related but different type of business in terms of moving into the film world and Universal Pictures, which is where we first met. And so how did that happen? And then could you provide a little bit of background for people who don't know They've probably heard the name Universal but just an example of some of the types of movies that Universal releases and then also what you do for the business.

Speaker 1: 12:02

Yeah, so universal, yeah, universal pictures. We're effectively and I'll get this asked a lot. They're like I get a bit of a blank gaze sometimes. What do you do when I'm dropping my son off at school and I'm like, oh, I work for universal pictures, and then the blank glaze continues, and then I have to say, basically I'm just trying to get people into the cinemas. Well, universal pictures pictures as they kind of make movies, so like we can make anything from household brands like the despicable me movies, jurassic movies, and then all the way on the opposite end of the scale, to cutting edge kind of horror movies, like a recent example, speak no evil with james mcavoy that came out recently and so yeah, and we'll get onto it later, but that that's the. The part of my job that I really, really enjoy is that you can be working on a, a family movie, one day, and then it would be like a, a full-blown horror and the other. I think that's why probably eight years has flown so by henry, to be honest yeah, yeah it.

Speaker 2: 13:02

the reason why I asked the question in part is because, in relation to brands apart from, arguably, disney and I guess you could say Illumination, within the Universal stable, I don't think the film studio brands mean very much to consumers. It's the titles, I guess the point is. Universal is certainly one of the very big companies in the sector, with a big slate of very varied movies. What would it be? I know obviously we've just had the writers' strike and this year hasn't been very representative, but in the usual year, how many movies a year would you release?

Speaker 1: 13:37

You're probably looking at around 30, 35 movies that we'd look after. Yeah, you're right, like this year has been a lot lower, like around the 20s. So what it's meant is that you know, those movies this year that we've been looking after have obviously taken off, taken an increasing importance, given we've had fewer movies to release. So I think we're collectively, as a team and and as a group, looking forward to next year when, as you say, due to the, due to the, the strike, the number of movies is is ramping back up again. But, yeah, take a step back, like I, I mean, I, I I'm part of, like the global research function. So my remit is within that global research function is to basically tell the business, or communicate to the business, everything they need to know about how a campaign is performing for our titles. Now that may be looking um, two years out in advance, of just taking a quick dip in terms of what do people feel about, you know, our bigger franchise movies, even though we, you know we're not going to release another movie for two years, just kind of taking the temperature. But also it may be it's mostly to do with, you know, when a movie's moving closer to release and we're spending lots of media.

Speaker 1: 15:00

As you can understand, the business wants to know effectively, where do you think our our title is going to end up in terms of opening weekend result? And we're fortunate that within this category we have a very clear KPI and that's opening weekend box office dollars. So within that we're not just looking at it's basically all our markets outside of the US, but we've got kind of 11 markets that we tend to really focus on. You can imagine the kind of the key players in APAC, so Australia, korea, japan, china, kind of the key players in APAC, so Australia, korea, japan, china, and then you've got Mexico, brazil in LATAM, and then UK, germany, france, spain, italy as well in Europe. So, yeah, they're the ones who kind of bring in, if you like, the biggest revenue.

Speaker 2: 15:49

Yeah, and how do you go about doing this? I mean, it's a big job in many ways, or their big decisions are being taken off the back of this. In terms of the campaign tracking and, as you described, I suppose to put it into context for other Insight people, this is campaign tracking pre-release, as opposed to post-release tracking, which I know a lot of the FMCG brands do. So how do you go about doing it? How does it all work?

Speaker 1: 16:17

Yeah, ncg brands do so. So how do you go about doing it? How does it all work? Yeah, it's, it's a, it's it's so.

Speaker 1: 16:20

So when I first started in the company, it was very much relying on traditional quantitative film tracking. Um, you're, as you can imagine, you know, taking the, taking the temperature of our film, or is our media resonating with certain audiences, looking at kind of general awareness metrics and urgency metrics and just making sure that they align with key historical comps that we would look at and, you know, making sure that effectively we're on track, based on, you know, the dollar value that we've sunk into media to hit our kind of opening weekend goals. But increasingly, and especially kind of post-pandemic, it's moved to looking beyond those more traditional signals, especially around social and search as well. So it's kind of taking, you know, the, the overall temperature across those kind of multiple data points and kind of serving it up to the business in a way that's easily digestible, is insane.

Speaker 1: 17:21

Okay, like what's running creatively, how is that impacting some of our signals? Do we think we're on the right track? Yes, all good, carry on. If not, okay, what's the feedback we're getting from from some of these signals? And then, how could potentially be course correct by swapping in and out of creative. The us are in a in a in a much more kind of agile a setup, more agile way to be able to kind of swap in and swap out that creative. But that's. It's a huge market but it's only kind of one effect, one market and with international that comes with a lot of it, becomes a slightly more challenging, given translation, given you know, etc.

Speaker 2: 18:07

Etc.

Speaker 1: 18:07

So so we're kind of factoring, factoring that in as well, which means that we're actually trying to gauge performance much sooner in the process. So rather than relying on until we get to four weeks about maybe and it's been even later for certain titles when that media spend really kicks in, we're kind of pushing beyond the t minus eight week window and further back to use all our signals to kind of take a read and go okay, we've got a problem here, what do we need to do? And that then allows us to be a bit more agile and swap in and swap out creative in some of those markets that do need that, have a longer lead time in terms of translation and things like that.

Speaker 2: 18:53

Okay, good, and so to help fill in oh and a few of the gaps for people are maybe less familiar and correct me if I'm wrong, if I misdescribe any of this, but broadly, the traditional approach was surveyor based. You'd survey, say, a thousand people in each market pre-release and then you've got certain benchmarks where you would say, if we use fast and furious, a universal franchise, just as an example, you would go fast and furious six, eight weeks pre-release had these metrics in terms of awareness, choice, interest amongst these groups. Fast and furious seven is now coming out I know I'm oversimplifying here, but it looks good in relation to the previous movies in the franchise or other comparative movies. You'd make choices based on that. So take you on board the point that the international media marketplace has challenges maybe the us doesn't to the same extent in terms of even flexibility of media buying and having versioning of that type of thing.

Speaker 2: 19:57

So how do you start pulling together the additional signals now? So surveys still part of it? I imagine? Yeah, and then do you actually? Do you use social and search and some of the other things you mentioned as kind of separate proof points to go? We're seeing this in survey. We're also seeing this in social? We're also seeing this in social. We're also seeing this in search or do you try to pull it together as one combined metric?

Speaker 1: 20:21

So we're really fortunate at Universal that we have an incredibly, basically incredible team, a data strategy team, that we work. They sit separately from the research team but we're kind of intertwined, headed by a guy called Chris Massey who has effectively built a product internally that allows us to go okay, tracking says this, search says this, social says this, all benchmarked against the comp set, and then we can go okay. You know that one of those components is, is is slightly softer than the other. So you know we we've we've got a problem here and it and it's almost like diving deeper into some of those metrics is it an urgency? Is it an urgency problem? I you know, are those urgency metrics soft?

Speaker 1: 21:13

On tracking, we're seeing low search volumes because like no one's really no one really knows about it or really wants to search for it at the moment, and then we know we've got our kind of is there or is there a knock-on effects then in terms of our creative? When do we need to start putting out more kind of call to action components about it's only in cinema, tickets go on sale now, those kind of things. So yeah, I see.

Speaker 2: 21:42

So, as you know, I always oversimplify things, so it's almost like the different signals are kind of like traffic lights and you might be going I've got green light, green light, green light. Everything will just continue. Or it might be green light, green light, hang on red light, on search, as an example. And then you dig into it further. You go, okay, well, why why search, not where we would expect it to be for this part of the movie? And then you go, oh, it's okay, we dig into it further. And now I see how it plays into the creative. You go if it's an urgency question, we can start to adjust our creative to, yeah, to generate kind of calls to action yeah, yeah, it's exactly that, henry and it.

Speaker 1: 22:28

What we've, what we're also exploring as well, is at the moment, is so a lot of so we're fortunate with universal that we release um, it's not just kind of franchise-based titles that we release, so like original titles, and inherently with those original titles they come with a low understanding or a low awareness of that title when it's when it hits or when that title starts to hit kind of more traditional signals and search. So not many people would know about that right, because they've never there before. Something that we're looking at is is there a world in which we actually use a public, publicly available trailer and kind of force people to watch it at that ta or t 16 week release schedule?

Speaker 2: 23:18

so that's six, that's 16 weeks before release. Yeah, just so. Yeah, just so. Just explaining for people who may maybe maybe less familiar with the jargon, because the film was yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:28

So like that further out, rather than having to wait until we get, to say, two or three weeks before release, when awareness builds the levels that we feel are robust enough to be able to make some of those decisions, we're now looking at means of kind of forcing people to watch trailers based on their kind of response in terms of not necessarily creatively, because that sits in a separate team within research In terms of the clever folks that are doing a separate team within research in terms of the, the, the clever folks that are doing a lot of kind of creative testing. It's more, what's the recall levels of the, of the trailer, of the title, to be honest, in that track? And you'll be surprised that, even if we put you know, we're trying to expose people to three movies, for instance, and obviously the order is shuffled around for each respondent, but then you ask them the question okay, out of those three movies, which titles can you remember? The levels for some of them are still really low and we've only but it's a thing that we've only just shown you that trailer. I think we're talking good, you know, one minute, two minute trailer, so we've only just shown that trailer. You know, 10, 20 seconds ago and you can't remember the title.

Speaker 1: 24:36

Clearly, we we've got a bit of a problem there. Alongside title recall, we're kind of capturing choice or full forced choice. So, like you know, if, if you had to see this movie, like you know, where would it rank versus other movies that are that are opening at the same time? So it's, it's something that we're we're looking into and and it's giving us because, certainly international, we know that that some of those are mostly original movies build later, and so, yeah, that that could be one area that we're we're looking into to kind of mitigate having to wait until it's too, it's basically too close to release to be able to actually effectively change anything.

Speaker 2: 25:20

And then last time we chatted, owen, you were also telling me how some movies are just really difficult, or they just don't fit in the conventional bucket, or they may be particular opportunities.

Speaker 1: 25:32

Yeah, absolutely, but it's. It's something that has happened most recently as well. So even in the US there's like the example of Twisters.

Speaker 2: 25:39

Just as a side note, Twisters was released internationally by Warner Brothers Discovery.

Speaker 1: 25:44

Where, you know, granted, that move didn't get a kind of real foothold internationally, but domestically it exceeded our expectations and kind of blew through a lot of the, the, the ceiling, that this, our signals were telling us at the time and again, that's just down to to your exactly, to your point, that there's a, an engaged core that maybe isn't picked up by our traditional surveying but, um, go out to the movies and and and are excited to go, and the same for long legs as well, which is, you know, a very different movie where I think, like movies like that at the moment just seem to, you know, catch fire and and if you've got that engaged audience, um, and it's got a number of, you know, those key ingredients where there's an element of we're seeing more and more movies of kind of this social virality as well, that's becoming increasingly important, that that really drives kind of movie going, especially opening weekend as well.

Speaker 2: 26:47

It prompts the question, I guess, about the market as a whole, because there has been some commentary, or quite a lot of commentary, about the effect of COVID. Obviously you've had the rise of streaming. Have people fallen out of the habit of going to the movies? But actually the examples you're giving suggest that that's not necessarily the case. The people do still go to the movies, but is it just becoming more difficult to predict what they're going to go, which movies they want to go and see.

Speaker 1: 27:17

So the the situation is, ie the cinema going situation is getting better. So we're not quite at pre-pandemic levels and that's largely driven to those frequent movie goers just not going as frequently as they did pre-pandemic because we know that they make up a greater proportion of the of the opening weekend box office than than than infrequence. But they're getting there and and to. And this year hasn't helped because the lack of, to your point, the lack of titles hasn't allowed people to get back into that habitual behavior of going back to the movies where we see real optimism in 2026, because the slate is kind of back up to full force and we've got some big movies not just from Universal but from other studios as well next year. But that's not true of all our international markets as well.

Speaker 1: 28:07

So there are markets on a quite wide spectrum. So Korea, for instance, is taking much longer to recover, along with the US, compared to somewhere like France, germany, uk and even Australia that have recovered much quicker and already very close to kind of pre-pandemic levels. Korea is quite an interesting one in recovering because of a couple of things. One of them is down to during covid, you know, the boom of streaming and it's really, really taken a real stronghold in that market and also there's a there's a real lean towards locally produced movies and and the moviegoers in that market much more inclined to favor a locally made movie than they are from hollywood. So, yeah, that's, we've got our work cut out, still in in somewhere like career compared to, you know, they kind of the european stalwarts.

Speaker 2: 29:04

So and does this affect the type of research and the hooks you're looking for? Are you finding that the type of creative you're having to put it to market is has adjusted because of post-pandemic attitude?

Speaker 1: 29:19

yeah, yeah, absolutely, and it's. And just to keep us on our toes, it kind of differs by market as well. So certain markets want certain things that that float to the top as well. So you know something that worked for certain movies um, during the year it's changing still so quickly, and this is true only of a certain segment of the population, which we'll come on to in a minute.

Speaker 1: 29:43

But if you've got a more kind of traditional genre, like a kind of an action adventure based genre, and you've got your stamp of a quality from your director and you've also got your, your, your stars, your group of like well-known hollywood stars, that is, that is your underpinning success there for that type of movie, then there's a kind of a layer on top that you're almost allows you to kind of play in the sandbox of it and differ by market and tweak by market, making sure, though you stick within certain parameters. But what we're finding is that that's fine for certain genres and for certain types of moviegoers, but there's a whole new generation of moviegoers coming through amongst those, you know that under-25 age group that want something different from their cinema-going experience.

Speaker 2: 30:43

What do they want? They don't just want to be on their phone the whole time, do they? While I'm trying to watch the movie?

Speaker 1: 30:50

No, they just want to make sure that, like, cinema-going for that group is seen as basically an event and it's an excuse for them to kind of get together in real life and have a kind of a communal viewing of something.

Speaker 1: 31:10

And that's what I think will lend itself into the performance of something like a low legs or a terrify three, where you know they, everybody in that movie theater is going to be scared together and everybody's going to scream at the same point and it's kind of this collective enthusiasm that they're all together and then basically they can all come out of the cinema and talk about the same thing and say, yes, yes, you know I was there and the way that we kind of message to that group as well is changing as well, because there's so much more, you know, socially, digitally focused that you know we're leaning much more away from the more kind of traditional uh methods and much more into social um.

Speaker 1: 31:55

So it's, yeah, it's interesting times and we're still kind of working through that. So there's not a kind of hard and fast answer to kind of what works for that for that group, but it's just yeah, it's, yeah, it's, it's in flux and it's and it's an exciting time to kind of be thinking about that, that younger generation of moviegoer coming through well, that's just what I was thinking.

Speaker 2: 32:17

I mean, if, if there was a formula, it'd be quite boring, would that? But actually the dynamics keep changing. Of the audience. You've got the you know competitive set is changing in different movies, entertainment media as a whole. It does sound a little bit like you maybe are having to work harder, though, in that that habit of oh, we'll just go to the movies just to fill in time has dissipated and, as you say, for this younger group, it okay, it's got to be something we're really going to enjoy together and we can talk about afterwards and maybe we can share, and it's got a virality around it. It's less a kind of just a sort of reflex action time killer.

Speaker 1: 33:01

Yeah yeah, and we're fighting against and we've got, we've got challenges, we've got and it's and it and it's, it's challenges with, with exhibition as well.

Speaker 2: 33:11

so exhibition are the cinemas themselves. Sorry, don't worry. Yeah, it's just the people who don't know. So that's the industry phrase for the cinemas.

Speaker 1: 33:20

Yeah, so cinema chains Thanks, henry, cinema chain. Well, the feedback we've been receiving from consumers is that price and what your cinema looks like inside when you get to that cinema are some of the top reasons for for going, or the expectations for that, for you going to that cinema. So when you're, either the cost of tickets is becoming expensive and or then you go to a cinema where it doesn't look the nicest for one reason or another. You you know these, these are, these are kind of reasons that are clearly kind of putting people off from from from going to the cinema. So when we talk about Gen Z, about kind of having to kind of meet in in cinemas and things like that, they're just. What can we do with exhibitions to make sure that you know that we're making these places a hub, if you will, for people to meet, and at the moment maybe they're just a step or two behind where they need to be?

Speaker 2: 34:21

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's a reason why you've got so many cinema chains and big sites are in shopping malls, because to some extent that provides the hub, doesn't it? Are you having to spend more per movie on marketing, given some of the trends we've been talking about?

Speaker 1: 34:39

I think it's two things. I think it's, yes to some degree, but it's also pivoting marketing spend away maybe from your more traditional components, maybe, for example, just, you know, turning down the dial slightly on on out of home and then deploying that somewhere much more on, for instance, digital and we're. You know, at the moment we're kind of experimenting to that point with some of these more kind of mid to smaller range titles of just using a digital only campaign yeah, it's poor old outdoor I might do.

Speaker 2: 35:21

I think outdoor could still play a role. I remember, yeah, I remember. You know, at one point we did a lot of work, as you probably remember, with the soi project on all the different, the different roles. But I but I guess in many cases, yes, it can be an awareness tool but by its nature, if you've got a quite a specific type of movie, you're going to make a lot of people aware who are just not in the target audience for that movie. If they don't like horror movies, there's no point in making them aware of the horror movie. They ain't going because they just don't like horror movies.

Speaker 2: 35:53

There's no point in making them aware of the horror movie they ain't going because they just don't like horror movies. So, and I'm conscious of time and I could pick your brain about the industry all day, but in terms of some of the principles, so what, what type of principles do you think will remain consistent in the film research world and what's going to change moving forwards?

Speaker 1: 36:13

I, I think it's it's becoming increasingly important to look at other signals and balance that traditional quant and other signals. But it certainly feels, like you know, with with a younger audience coming through, like there must be a world in which, you know, potentially we're looking at methodologies beyond just that core quant. But, that being said, at the moment the you know we're fortunate that at the moment, from a research perspective, we can still, you know, capture a good degree of our audience using that quant. But yeah, at the same time, I'm kind of excited to see what comes in the next couple of years when we start to see those younger audiences come up through, and there may be even more instances where we're not really kind of capturing, you know, that virality of that younger audience through our more traditional methods and we need to think more about kind of what else? Where else should we be looking?

Speaker 2: 37:13

so, yeah, yeah, I mean it speaks to some broader questions for the consumer insight sector around the validity of panel research and survey research and who's on the panels, which is a big question. I guess, on one side, if it ain't broke, you don't need to fix it, if it's still working and if it's still pretty predictive, and it sounds like, from all the work you and Chris Massey have been doing, that it's a very important signal and you're validating it's a very important signal. But I can definitely see the argument who is this 13-year-old that's doing some long survey? So anyway, as I said, conscious of time, so should jump on to a quick far round to start to wrap up, and so you know I have I have to ask, given that, as you know, I know most of the agencies you're working with so, in your view, what makes a good research agency and the flip side, a not so good research agency?

Speaker 1: 38:13

yeah, do you know a not so good research agency? Yeah, do you know what, henry? I started thinking about this question and I thought, actually, I just think that's being unfair to agencies and I kind of flipped it on its head. I think it's more about how client teams treat those agencies and therefore that's reflected in the agency response.

Speaker 1: 38:32

For instance, I've definitely been in businesses where the amount of information that has been shared with agencies has been very restrictive and very narrow presented things and there's senior stakeholders in the room go yeah, that's great and we get your piece of work, but there's a whole other bit of you know, a whole other bit of the business, a whole other bit of the excavation that we're talking about, and the research agency, understandably, are like well, great, like we didn't know that.

Speaker 1: 39:05

So how can we, how can we kind of react and prepare and amend our work and generate insights, not knowing that? So I would, I would, I would, yeah, flip it on its head and I would say a great agency works with a great client team only if there's complete transparency between the both of them in terms of information sharing. Yes, there's sensitivities, I get that, but what I learned from previous agency is that only when there is a really healthy level of transparency and a healthy level of trust and you're seeing that agency team as your extended arm of your kind of in-house research team, the real things start to happen and and they, and then they get your business and and, and collectively you're you're better as a whole, rather than two kind of independent teams.

Speaker 2: 40:04

So yeah, I think it's a great answer. Your agencies will love you for that answer. You're almost saying there's no such thing as a good or bad agency. It's all down to the way the client.

Speaker 1: 40:15

I swear about on Henry quite nicely, didn't I if?

Speaker 2: 40:17

anyway, yeah no, it's a great answer. You did swerve it very nicely, but it is a great answer too. Okay, but now we just see if you can swerve this one or not so. I also have to ask so what would your partner say? Your best and your worst characteristics?

Speaker 1: 40:31

yeah, so we've. So we recently moved house and we there is a lot of like work to do like it's livable but there's, you know, you, decoratively and other jobs need doing. So my wife, my wife's list is slowly getting shorter and my list stays exactly the same. So I think that says a lot about my wife's urgency and getting stuff done and me just kind of happy, just to kind of go, yeah, it's okay, we can live here, but um, yeah, she's yeah more inclined and to get things done and I'm a bit like a bit more relaxed, too relaxed, probably for my own good, henry, I think that's probably a part of my problem how about the best ones?

Speaker 2: 41:14

There must be all sorts of things she appreciates.

Speaker 1: 41:17

A pretty handy chef Cook, like yeah, I'm a bit of a dab hand in the kitchen. Yeah, just, I just sound so cheesy but generally kind of thoughtful, considerate person, a genuine human being that's all she says to me. She wants. So I human, a genuine human being, that's all she says to me. She wants.

Speaker 2: 41:34

So like, yeah, that's who you got well, she's got a genuine human being who can also cook, which is fantastic winning combo yeah, and so a related question if you could buy invite, say, a couple of people to dinner your your wife is definitely included two other people, who would they be?

Speaker 1: 41:55

definitely. Oh yeah, one of them was I definitely, I definitely get lance armstrong along. So I'm I, I do I don't manage to get out as much as I should do now site road cycling, but I definitely want to kind of put lance armstrong on the spotlight. Like everybody else in this world, I'd be fascinated just to speak to him. And then I think the other person I would invite would be uh, I think it would be probably Henry. I'd get Henry along, henry, hayward, and we'd have some. We'd have some drinks and then and reminisce about the good old days at tns fantastic.

Speaker 2: 42:35

I love that. Now, to wrap up, I'd be remiss just not to ask you and to pick your brain about what movies we should be looking forward to. So what's coming out? They don't have to be universal movies. They can be universal movies. So over to you, owen. What would you recommend?

Speaker 1: 42:49

yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't come on here, henry, and it would be remiss of me not to push Wicked. It's a fantastic experience. Again, sorry, another universal plug, but Nosferatu, directed by Robert Eggers as well, that comes out at the beginning of the year and it's a really. If you enjoy your kind of dark, grimy horrors, this is definitely, definitely one for you. So probably opposite ends of the scale there between Wicked and Nosferatu, but yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 43:21

Well, as you say, that's, I assume, part of the fun of the job is dealing with very, very different types of movies or consumer propositions. If you want to think of them in those terms, owen, I should let you go. It's getting late on a Friday. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure, as always, to talk to you. Thanks, henry, so much fun doing that interview. Owen's very engaging, knowledgeable and I hope you got a little bit of flavor there in terms of how behind the scenes in the film world works. If you like these interviews, please do follow and rate on the relevant platforms. Apparently, it makes a big difference on the algorithms, whatever they are. Thanks again to Owen for the interview and to MXA Labs for sponsoring. They were described by a client recently as the best application of AI for market research they've seen to date, so do please check them out. Thanks to Insight Platforms for their continued support and, of course, to you for listening. See you next time.