WarnerMedia's Matthew Marolda thinks applying analytics to audience targeting would be helpfulTONY FLOREZ
With analytics now a big part of team strategies both on and off the field, WarnerMedia Applied Analytics President Matthew Marolda took attendees at the '19 AXS Ticketing Symposium in L.A. on a deep dive into numbers and talked about the correlations between entertainment and sports. Where Marolda tries to predict behavior and outcomes at the intersection of people and content, he suggested sports execs would do well to substitute fans and teams or games. Marolda said WarnerMedia applies analytics to audience targeting. “We make a prediction whether someone will buy a movie ticket or watch a show,” he said. “We try to do that for everything ... if they will tune in (to a show), or take future action. It’s like season ticket renewals and (fans) responding to promotions.” Data can also reveal some fun facts. He said, “We found that people who liked the show ‘Colony’ liked John Stamos and Pizza Hut. That’s pretty random.”
KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE: Drilling down to know your audience can also help prepare for potential blowback from a controversial move. An example is the new HBO show, “Euphoria.” “HBO wanted to know how people would react to the show,” Marolda said. “What are things that might pop up and how would they address them? What are people talking about?” Marolda noted that the lion’s share of marketing spend in entertainment is done prior to launch, but wondered about the tradeoffs for in-season spending for sports teams and how marketing strategies may change depending on whether a team is on a winning streak or losing streak. Additionally, Marolda said data can help make a movie incrementally better and sometimes help create a hit. “You know who bought tickets and which zip codes worked well,” he said. “‘Crazy Rich Asians’ we were very uncertain of. The predictions were not clear, and it hit the zeitgeist at the right moment and we spent more money and made a hit out of it.” The numbers can also predict flops. “Michael Mann’s ‘Black Hat’ we could tell would be rough,” he said, “so we pulled back spend. We spent to open it, but that was tough.”
