Internet + Movies: Not Just Cheap

The impact of the Internet on movies should begin with the electronic commercialization of movie tickets. In the past, the traditional form of movie ticket sales was extremely unfriendly to the audience and was criticized by users. Entertainment has become an annoyance.

In recent years, Internet companies represented by BAT have marched into the film industry, and internet business models such as crowdfunding, e-commerce, and video websites have been grafted into the film industry. The entire Internet has begun to become a hot film, and the war of the movie has also burnt to the Internet platform.
For the first-time Internet users, the price is definitely the most concerned part of the user. Is price really the most important link for platform competition?

In an interview, the head of the cat-eye movie Xu Wei said that prices cannot be the first factor that affects the viewing of users. However, he also does not deny that the necessity of promotional measures, according to the data released by the cat's eye, shows that in 2014, the cat's eye achieved a total of 5 billion in the box office. At present, the number of cinemas that cats have access to has reached more than 3,000, and the proportion of people who support online selection has been around 20-30%. In his plan, this proportion will reach 50% in 2015.


"Users do not simply want to buy tickets earlier, but they also hope to select seats early." Xu Wei said that this is a win-win situation for both the hospital and the consumers. "The entire efficiency improvement is very obvious."

For the reform of the Internet, it can be seen from the cinema. Netease science and technology reporters surveyed several cinemas within 3 kilometers of the residence and found that the number of queues in the traditional ticket window is not many. Relatively speaking, On the ticket picking machine, there is a continuous stream of users picking up tickets. According to random survey results of Netease Technology reporters, this part of the users purchase tickets through the Internet.

In NetEase's random research, these users all believe that the convenience of online, price advantage and the quality of the cinema facilities are the few points they are most concerned about. "As long as the traffic is convenient and the time is right, priority will be given to selecting seats online." One user expressed to NetEase.

Gwana CEO Liu Yong, who saw the opportunity of the movie ticket market early on, said to Netease Technology that it used to be a movie brainwash and had a very clear experience of viewing movies. In his view, the price factor of the entire Internet movie market is gradually weakening, especially in relatively mature first- and second-tier cities. "Looking at movies becomes a way of life," and when movies are involved in more people's lives, Liu Yong begins to think about traditions. Whether the movie announcement mode is suitable for current Internet users.

Liu Yong emphasized that the traditional sales model is extensive, and the thinking on the industrial chain must be changed from the mode of propaganda. He took the recent Wolf Totem as an example. “In the same period, there are a lot of hot films. Pull through the marketing of the entire network platform, combined with the marketing of movie content, has created a box office that continues to climb."

Cat eyes and Che Guevara have tasted the sweetness of the release of Internet movies. Several popular movies last year were deeply influenced by the Internet.

However, this does not mean that the Internet will be able to get a high box office. Internet users' data mining has become an important basis for all major platforms and publishers.

How about movie + big data

In the entire pan-entertainment market, the BATs did not bother to use film as a cut-in point in 2014, and they invested heavily. Each of them claimed to use data to tap into greater potential.

Baidu mobile phone in the market early this year through low-cost strategy to attract consumers to buy movie tickets on the mobile terminal Baidu, Baidu relevant person in charge of the NetEase technology, Baidu from the past to tap the data in the user's precise purchase needs, for the entire The movie market is a huge increase.

"Users of general ticketing platforms often have clear viewing requirements and existing online seating recognition, but in the movie market, 61% of potential audiences with ambiguous viewing requirements (Yi-en data), You may not have downloaded any ticket sales APP, and will not actively use the ticketing APP when there is no clear viewing requirements. However, most of these people will have pan-demand for search. Baidu sees this as an opportunity." The person in charge of the movie project said.


Of course, Baidu sees the opportunity of sales forehead, the importance of data for traditional movies, and begins to play a role in the industry chain. Data is an important basis for the selection of more traditional film distributors and producers. These data can be Internet information data, social media data, etc. Recently, Ai Man Technology has just completed A round of financing. Since its establishment, it has been building big data for the entire entertainment industry. It is understood that several popular movies last year were small. The time series has had in-depth cooperation. "We use keywords, tagged entertainment industry data, combined with the assessment of social media distribution and distribution strategies to provide decision-making for movie discovery parties," said Ai Man, CEO of Xi Mang. He saw the potential of this market from 2010. "Hollywood has always had such a data system, but China is relatively backward", but now there are a large number of parties who have realized the value of data and chose to cooperate.

Xia Zongxi believes that the scale of transactions on the online platform is constantly expanding. It is a win-win for the entire film and entertainment industry, because these future consumption data and the previous data will be an important basis for the industrialization of the film.

On the consumer side, in fact, several internet platforms also smelled the value. The cat's eyes communicated with the backstage of the theater to feedback the box office in real time. Xu Zhen pointed to the "want to see" button of the mobile phone client. "Basically, I want to see Users are the users who will eventually watch the tickets."

In addition, to the issuer, the cat's eye began to cooperate with the filming party to jointly issue, "We analyzed the data to find out more suitable for the film's scheduling plan." Xu Wei said, "We believe that we must serve the user through the whole process of watching movies. When the user learns when a movie is released, he goes to watch the update of various information in the movie, and then he decides which movie theater to go to, then selects a seat from the selection hall until he returns and then sends a movie review to score. This is a complete cycle, so what we need to do is not just selling tickets. We are helping users to improve the closed loop of the whole process of watching movies."

Of course, Xu Zhen's emboldenedness was also due to the fact that last year, the cat's eye had achieved a good reputation through his exhilarating efforts and taking wisdom from Tiger Mountain, and received a good box office feedback.

The use of data will also bring about other changes in the film industry.


New changes from traditional movie announcement models

The traditional Chinese film announcement system has existed for more than 20 years. There is a lot of opaqueness among them, and each movie theater is a closed system. The intervention of the Internet is beginning to break through these limitations.

Guevara CEO Liu Yong stated that the traditional system of propaganda and content production in the past was very chaotic and had no clear boundaries. After the Internet entered, it began to bundle the three links of “user-television content” together. It is data that is supported.

However, the major movie ticketing platforms are still encouraging competition. As an important breakthrough in local life, Liu Yong has his own plan. From the direction of the movie alone, he believes that the key to the next step is to break through the price factors that were unable to escape the competition. , And more attempts were made to invest in content operations, consumer upgrades (enhancing user viewing experience), and service links.

For the platform competition level, the future is not only the competition of users, but also the service competition. The backing of data will become the key. The platform does not want to be a movie ticket porter, but also invests more in the front end of the film industry chain.

For the traditional film production and distribution, the new model is also undergoing a change. Related people in LeTV said that the future cooperation with the e-commerce platform will be a win-win cooperation, not just the current form of resource replacement. .

The issuer also began to attach importance to the Internet platform. Huayi Brothers also improved its layout through the acquisition of “ticketing nets”. LeTV also launched its own “Le Filmer” and promoted it with exclusive resources.


Reporter's notes:

The power of Internet+ has once again been reflected in the film industry.

Internet ticketing platform began to see the value of data for the industry chain. Cat Eye, Che Guevara, WeChat movie tickets, Baidu, Netease movie tickets and other products have accumulated through their own technology to get rid of the platform model we used to just buy coupons, and similar to Ai Man. The third-party data institutions such as Yen and En'i began to provide services to the industry. Together with the existing distribution and production organizations, the movie industry has begun to grow in size.