Introduction

AlloCiné has been online since 1997 and today dominates the French “film and TV series information” market. It is the leading Francophone entertainment database, with more than 80,000 films, 5,000 TV series, and 290,000 personalities listed. AlloCiné also has one of the most complete video and photo banks available on the Internet (21,000 videos – trailers, excerpts, making of – and 200,000 photos).  

Objectives

AlloCiné is the largest movie trailer portal in Europe. “These trailers are at the heart of our role as a broadcaster of content and advertising. Video analytics are critical for us,” says Brice Richardson, Survey manager at AlloCiné. Video trailers are more than just a communication medium: the trailers shown by AlloCiné serve as a freestanding promotional tool for film distributors. There are therefore a number of analytic needs: – to determine the total audience of the video medium – to identify the most popular and least popular trailers – to have the ability to define specific variables that allow the evaluation of the real interest internet users have in each video.  

Solutions

• Detailed video analysis

Every day, more than 800,000 videos are viewed on AlloCine.com. “Using AT Internet’s Rich Media analysis, we have defined more than 20 variables that allow us to assess the interest and performance of each video. We also use the authorised and semiauthorised views of these variables on a daily basis to monitor the viewing ratios of all videos together or to establish the most viewed videos.”

• Evidence based advice and forecasts

“We could see a genuine correlation between the success of trailers and the films’ success at the box office.” Conversely, lack of interest in a film can be predicted by its trailer’s performance.” This was the case, for example, for one of the most eagerlyawaited films of 2009: the adaptation of a cult manga. The trailer initially proved to be hugely popular online, but we noticed a very high rate of incomplete views (average view time) which indicated internet users’ marked disappointment, this was confirmed by the movie’s performance in theatres. Using analysis on the trailers on AlloCine.com has allowed us to not only gauge the level of exposure and reach of a particular film but also to be able to accurately predict its success at the box office. “Our experience, combined with the data rich insights that our web analytics provide, give us what we need to serve as advisors to the film distribution industry. The detailed viewing metrics are a way of translating an internet user’s reaction to the trailer, satisfaction and disappointment with a given trailer are clearly visible in the statistics and are further supplemented by the comments users are able to post online.”

• Birth of a new display offer

“Out of all the video metrics we monitor every day, one variable was a true revelation for us: the complete-view rate of our videos. We created a new offer based entirely on this indicator.” To see that more than 60% of our videos were viewed in their entirety immediately indicated the exposure potential after these videos but also the capacity to monetise this audience. That’s when the new ‘Post Roll Trailer’ offer was born: when the internet user has reached the end of a trailer, we suggest a second trailer that might interest him or her. Unlike the first trailer, it’s not a question of the internet user’s own choice, but a targeted marketing effort that delivers relevant content specific to the viewers indicated behavioural preferences. There are two upsides as far as film distributors are concerned: precisely targeting those who have indicated an interest in the promotional film style or genre (based on behavioural preferences) and paying only for those targeted trailers views: “The real advantage of this offer is that we provide film distributors with additional guaranteed visibility – only the trailers actually watched for more than 25% of their total length are invoiced”

• Understanding the benefit of external content

External content also acts as a lever to help increase video exposure. “We chose to export our videos to external sites, mostly blogs and specialised sites, using an exportable player.” The Rich Media tracking helps distinguish audience figures generated internally versus audiences gained from external media sources. “Today, exported videos account for 10% of the total audience of AlloCiné videos.” Above and beyond this additional audience, this external content serves as further entry points to the AlloCine.com site. This significantly improves traffic generated (at no cost) and also has a valuable impact on the SEO of the AlloCine.com site, bringing its own visitor traffic benefits.  

Results

• Instant success

Measurement is key. Once the ‘Post Roll Trailer’ promotion was implemented, success was instantaneous: “We increased the number of videos watched by 20% – equating to more than 180,000 additional videos a day. This new product helps us meet a real need on the part of distributors.”

• Quality that has real impact

The importance of carefully and highly targeted second view promotions cannot be highlighted enough. The success of the promotions is largely due to the Rich media analysis available to us from within the AnalyzerNX dashboard. “For each ‘Post Roll Trailer’ video, we push trailers that in some way match viewing preferences learnt from the first film (genre, actor etc.). For each suggested trailer combination we measure its success and are then able to constantly refine and improve the targeting criteria, which in turn improves the display promotion performance. We are also careful to set parameters which prevent competing trailers to be pitched against each other. Our distributors have been really pleased with the performance.

• Audience broadcasting platform

Audience development is central to AlloCiné’s strategy, as a result AlloCiné chose to give direct access to audience data via the AlloCiné Pro platform. This tool is mainly reserved for cinema professionals (distributors, producers, owners and press contacts) who can monitor, day by day, the interest shown in their film and adjust display purchases as necessary. AlloCiné Pro now has more than 5000 subscribers. All these reports are automatically supplied by AT Internet data through web services. “We increased the number of videos watched by 20% – more than 180,000 additional videos a day.” Brice Richardson – Survey manager for Allociné