Reading Between the Tweets: Did the Academy Get It Right?

March 8th, 2010

Now that the suspense has been lifted and we know the names of the all the winners of last night’s Academy Awards, it’s time to play Monday morning quarterback and ask the question: Did the Academy get it right? Evaluating performances and art criticism of any kind is an incredibly subjective endeavor. Therefore to bring a degree of science to the equation, we thought it would be interesting–  both as a market research exercise as a well as a cultural gauntlet throw-down to the Academy members–  to monitor Fccebook and the twittersphere and measure how consumers’ social media activity equates to the Academy Award winners.

Counting tweets:

Focusing our measurement efforts on the Best Picture category, our team of consultants used Twitter advance search to measure audience engagement for each of the nominees. Using keywords related to each of the ten nominees, we measured the number of tweets for two weeks leading up to the Oscars (Feb 16th – March 3^rd). The ten best picture nominees generated more than 100,000 tweets during the period and ranked as follows:

Given these audience metrics, “Avatar“, followed by “Up in the Air” and “The Hurt Locker” were generating the most tweets during the build up to Sunday night with “The Blind Side” out of the medals for best picture, but still ranking a respectable 4^th.

During the course of our measurement, it became clear that pre-Oscar buzz was definitely a factor in generating audience interest, if not generating more votes for those pictures that did not ultimately win awards.

Tweet Trend for Best Picture Nominees 2/16 - 3/2

Both Hurt Locker and actress Carrie Mulligan saw their twitter stars rise the days following their wins at the BAFTA. Actress Gabby Sidibe and director Lee Daniels also benefited from their recognition at NAACP Awards. With the juggernaut of special effects delivered by Avatar, Peter Jackson’s “District 9” was doomed to be overshadowed by the Academy, but rated strong in fan interest on twitter throughout the period and appears to be headed for strong futures DVD sales/rentals and downloads.

FaceBook Movie Fans

Oscar nominations and awards have a big impact on the financial success of a movie. It’s no wonder that the academy has expanded the pool of nominated movies to 10 films and why movie producers turn up the advertising volume in advance of the Oscars. So which production company had the most success with the influential Facebook crowd? Was there any influence made by the social graph?  To find out we followed the registration volume of Facebook members to the Fan pages of the films nominated for best picture for two weeks in advance of the Oscars and gained some interesting insights.

Facebook Fan Base

First it was clear that like total box office receipts, Avatar is clearly in a league of its own. Avatar fan page registrations are over 400% greater than its nearest competitor with over 1.5 million members. This broad endorsement on Face book is likely the result of demographics, 50 % of Facebook members are less than 34 years of age, as well as the simple fact that it was a high quality visual film that appealed to broad based sentiments.

Increase in FB fanbase in 2 weeks preceding Oscars

However, evaluating the change in fan registration data over the two week period in advance of the Oscars revealed some insights into the building momentum for “the Hurt Locker”. In the two weeks prior to the Oscars the percentage increase in fan base registration for the Hurt Locker increased  28%. This growth was 200% more than any other fan page for a other nominated film.  

Social Media Gold?

There are many challenges in using social network fan base data as an indicator of relative success at the Oscars. Key issues include the subject matter, demographics of the audience, and release date of the film. As a follow-up to this post we will complement our data pool with insights into web site traffic data and the insights they provide into tracking box office receipts and revenues.

While I’m sure James Cameron was chagrined to be overlooked by the Academy for not being selected for best director or best picture accolades, if social media buzz is any indication, Avatar will continue to deliver solid gold at the box office.

We’ll see how his statue gripping competitors fare in the weeks ahead.

Lenati consultants Mark Ippolito and Frank Ramirez contributed to this post.

Entry Filed under: Marketing