An article today in Advertising Age highlights how twitter can boost or destroy a films box office rating almost before it has got off the ground.
This phenomenon is a direct result of the power of word of mouth marketing which the internet and in particular social sites now deliver at a much faster rate than previously. Market research firm 360i recently tested the Twitter effect by comparing Twitter traffic for “Bruno” during its first weekend at the box office with three other summer films, and found “Bruno” to have the highest percentage of drop-off in second-day box-office takings (-39%) and negative tweets (21%).
But making a direct correlation between the two is not yet scientific and does not yet correlate with all films, said Sarah Hofstetter, 360i’s senior VP-emerging media and client strategy. “A movie like ‘Bruno’ is exceptionally polarizing — either everyone wants to see Sacha Baron Cohen naked or they don’t,” she said. “You have to differentiate in the content and context of a film — if you give too much credence to Twitter marketing and you say, ‘Our efforts contributed to a 10% lift in ticket sales,’ no one’s going to agree on what caused that.”
This said though it has never before been possible to fully measure the effect of word of mouth marketing, but positive comments from others generate more sales in all areas in the same way that negative comments tend to have the opposite effect. The opinion of peers is vitally important to most purchasers whether it is of films or others services and products and the Advertising Age article clearly shows that this effect will act more quickly and will have far reaching financial consequences both on the upside and downside going forward.
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