SO WHAT DOES ‘THE BUZZ’ LOOK LIKE FOR A BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE?
Wow, awesome, spectacular…. a few words that have been used to describe the movie of the moment – Avatar. I’ve seen it, you’ve probably seen it, and well yeah IMHO it’s deserved of its accolades. But that’s not the point of this post.
Moreover 20thCentury FOX are a client and as such we have been keenly following the way WoM and buzz for this film has grown from the release of the first snippets and teasers through its release date and now well into its cinematic release and arguably history making run at highest grossing film of all time.
Following are some charts and observations taken from our Sentiment Measurement Tool. (Note: for commercial reasons charts are small files and all scales have been removed)
Buzz Volume and Sentiment
-Avatar launched officially in Australia on December 17th
-Positive buzz for the film began back in October (trailer release, teaser screenings and pre-sales) but the conversations only began to achieve significant volumes about a week out from the 17th
-WoM peaked on the 22nd December (a Tuesday and the first week of holidays for many)
-With the exception of Christmas conversations have continued at a steady and significant pace since then.
-Sentiment is overwhelmingly positive with less than 4% being attributed negative (most of this relates to queues or technical issues in cinemas)
So, what is selling this movie?
- Simple. James Cameron (orange bar) is the key selling proposition and has been the predominant topic discussed in relation to this picture.
What about those adjectives?
- That’s right terms like; ‘good, great, awesome, fantastic, wow, enjoyed’ feature in about 25% of all conversations tracked since December 1st
Finally, where is all this chatter occurring?
-The above charts present two different views of the same data. The sources by authority show that film sites like IMDB and in fact facebook are the most influential channels in terms of their collective reach and popularity.
-On the other hand we have twitter (the long tail of chit chat) which is by far and away the most prodigious channel in terms of how often the term Avatar appears – indicating people shared their experiences of the film with peers more here than anywhere else (expect around the dinner table, bar, or BBQ perhaps)
So, the net is literally abuzz with Avatar and is no doubt playing its part in driving box office. We look forward to seeing for how long and to what extent over the coming weeks.
