Can Google Predict High Grossing Films?
The way consumers search for films on Google may be able help to predict how well the film will do at the box office.
At least this is the conclusion drawn by Andrea Chen, Google's Principal Industry Analyst for Media and Entertainment in a new Google AdWords post titled "Quantifying Movie Magic with Google Search."
Using data from 99 of last year's biggest movie hits, the search engine has come up with a few elements that will give studios a prediction of how their film will do come opening weekend and how they may be able to increase their chances of a profit.
While the post reports that 48 percent of moviegoers decide on what flick to catch the same day they head out to the theater. However, Google claims that the amount of times a movie trailer is searched four weeks prior to release can help determine the box office revenue with 94% accuracy when coupled with statistics on release season and franchise backing.
On top of that, if a film receives 250,000 more searches then competing films in the week prior to release, then it had the opportunity to earn $4.3 million more during that crucial first weekend.
While our search engines get smarter at predicting users likes and dislikes, the research may lead to a more Internet friendly advertising campaign by film studios.
