Lionsgate - Re-imagining film and asset testing for a Hollywood movie studio

Challenge 

​A Hollywood movie studio sought to increase their intelligence, speed of decision making, and competitive advantage in the market by sourcing or creating new technology tools, information frameworks, and business processes.

​We kicked off a multi-year data and analytics transformation to achieve the following:

• Reimagined film and asset testing

• Predictive, universal comps

• Audience learning machine to predict audience behavior

• Increased theatrical marketing speed and accuracy

• Predict and identify whitespaces in content strategy

Key OPPORTUNITIES

  • Establish a more “audience-centric” approach to research and motion picture strategy

  • Generate actionable insights to empower filmmakers and better inform strategy

  • Set new, trusted standards for testing processes, methods and metrics

  • Move beyond ad-hoc testing to create a repository of historical data to build predictive audience analytics

  • We coached our clients to adopt a design-thinking, agile approach to our work for 16 weeks

Impact 

Through our work, we sparked the Digital DNA of this Hollywood movie studio and laid the foundation for future innovation in AI and predictive analytics for a creative company

DISCOVER : Understand Current State

  • Journey mapping of key processes to identify pain points

  • In-depth interviews to identify common needs and behaviors

  • Mobile diaries to understand audience testing experiences

DEFINE: North Star Vision

  • Remote ideation workshop to generate concepts

    • 24 Participants across seven departments

    • 62 Initial concepts generated

  • North Star vision to align on future state

  • MVP based on desirability, feasibility and viability

CREATE: Prototype and Pilot MVP

  • Pilot Emotion AI and mobile diaries to explore new testing methods

    • We analyzed audience’s microexpressions and tagged them to distinct emotions correlated with specific scenes. Our analysis generated actionable insights for how to iterate the trailer to effectively attract and engage audiences of different demographics 

  • Insights Dashboard to serve as future platform for predictive analytics

    • Key features include: Access all past and current research studies / Search, filter and sort information (reports, assets, topline scores) / Create movie project page to track updates based on ongoing research / Customize and use the dashboard (by role) / Understand consumer behavior, psychographic and trends / Build and customize research plans

  • Strategic roadmap to guide next steps