Disney - Social Media Monitoring Project 2

Need for Speed

Marching on with the my second set of social media observations, I decided to see what kind of social media tools were used in Need for Speed (NFS), a car movie that came out on March 14th, just two weeks ago. The movie is based on the video game with the same name that has been extremely popular since its inception in 1994. Here's a quick look at the trailer.

Social media promotion for NSF was mainly focused on Facebook page, two Twitter hashtags, Tumbler and the movie's official website.


Website

Just like the Saving Mr. Banks, the website is extremely interactive with movie's music playing in the background giving the website a sense of mystery. The website is the central platform that connects number of social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumbler. What makes NF website different from the Saving Mr. Banks website is that the marketing team has made an effort to connect the social media with the website as much as possible by making it easier for people to share site content via social media and connecting Twitter comments by users in the website.

Twitter comments in the NSF website

Facebook

The Facebook Insights shows the NFS page demographics is the 18 to 24 year-olds. Facebook Social graph search shows that the most people who "Like" the NSF movie page are single male. Looking at the page content it is clearly most people are car enthusiast. Compared to Saving Mr. Banks, NFS page has a someone replying and driving conversation on the page instead of simply posting on the wall.

There are six Facebook pages affiliated with the Need for Speed, the game and the movie. Above graph compares number of Likes on two Facebook pages, NFS movie page and NFS game page two weeks prior (week of 2/23 and 3/2)  and two weeks after (3/9 and 3/16) the movie release. On Average, Likes on the NFS page increased 444% while the number of Likes on NFS game page, increased 498%. Part of the reason most book based or game based movies seems to be so common is because of its built-in fan base. In NFS case, the movie is also an attempt to bring the game to life through the real life car chases and actors. It is clear from  the above statistic that NSF movie had increase the conversation about the NSF video game. In fact it had made a bigger positive impact on the game than the actual movie.

Ask for Comment Facebook Post

Above graph summarizes the Facebook interaction for the month of March 2014 by the post's content type. Posts that asked people a question, like the picture bellow generated the most amount of Likes. Again, like the Saving Mr. Banks page, trailers generated the most amount of shares. Interestingly, unlike Saving Mr. Banks movie posters got a lot of people's attention as well.



YouTube Trailer Release

The official trailer release reached over 500,000 views within nearly a week. The release generated mostly positive reviews. The negative comments after the movie release points out the story-line does not have enough substances. There were number of references to the TV series Breaking Bad that the star of the movie, Aaron Paul also known for.

Twitter

The movie trailers announced two different Twitter hashtags #needforspeedmovie and #NSFmovie. Most of the comments on #needforspeedmovie was from average movie goers sharing their experience. EtcML sentiment analysis shows that the #needforspeedmovie hashtag has mostly positive sentiment.

Sentiment analysis on #needforspeedmovie hashtag

On the other hand, the #NSFmovie hashtag was not as active. The hashtag was mostly used by movie bloggers, social media movie reviewers.

IMBD

Wordle word cloud on IMBD comments

It is evident that the NSF movie is not one of the movies that will be loved by the critics. Critics averaged the movie at 4.3/10 with compared to the IMBD user rating at 7.3/10. The movie was in number three position in the IMBD moviemeter ranking. The word cloud summarizes commonly used words in the 114 IMBD comments (the words film and movie has been taken out). Words cars, racing, action are very prominent in the conversation. Though several negative comments were pointing out the story should have more substance.  

Conclusions

The NSF movie is catering to a narrower movie goer segment, mostly consists of NSF gamers, car enthusiast. So, groundswell is a very important part of the marketing campaigns. Overall, Disney has made an increased effort to incorporate groundswell with Facebook comment replies, and increasing the social media connectivity in the websites. However, it is clear the marketing efforts on Twitter has fallen short. Even though the hashtags were announced there was not as much activity in #NSFmovie. 

Recommendations

Studio entertainment is in direct competition with online services such as YouTube, Netflix and Hulu that provide the convenience of choosing the content type and on demand availability. Social media delivers a crucial outlet to personalize the studio entertainment. Disney has undoubtedly recognized the importance of the social media in the movie distribution process. Goal of the movie distribution is to tell the right story to the right people in the right time at the right place. In other words, the type of movie affect the audience, number of theaters and countries the movie will be released and the time of the year the movie will be released.

Listening to the Social Media

There are several ways to listening to the social media can help improve the movie promotions. People’s reactions on movie trailers can be a powerful telling of the different ways people interpret the movie based on what they see in a two minute video. YouTube comments on trailers are from much more diverse group of movie-goers compared to Facebook. Reviewing the YouTube comments on trailers can be a great indicator that the marketing is reaching the correct audience or whether it is necessary to adjust the distribution strategy if trailer does not show people are interested in the story.

Second, social media outlets such as IMBD and Rotton Tomato can be a tool in the production process when selecting actors and directors. Aside from the obvious and most important fact, the talent, social media can show the star power and stigma attached to the actor or director.  Finally, tool such as Google Trends can give an idea on what are the areas to plan a promotional tour, promo events or offer a limited movie release based on popularity for pre-existing fans. For example, following map shows the Google search interest for the NFS game from 2004 to present. It is clear the San Francisco- Oakland, Hagerstown are two of the best metro areas for promo events.

Talking with Social Media

Disney already has a powerful social media presence and experience in talking with the groundswell, which is evident from the tone of the most posts to the conventions the social media pages has created like the trivia Tuesday. On the performance standpoint, number of “shares” is a key performance indicator for movie promotions. So it is important to note that on Pinterest, posts with Quotations generated the most amounts of shares while trailers and other videos generated most shares on Facebook.

Energizing with Social Media

Energizing is the power of word of mouth channeling across the social media platforms. Disney is already using energizing strategies such as, posting people’s positive Twitter reviews in the movie’s website. Energizing can be especially important for a low budget movie with a limited release. There are number of YouTube channels and blogs dedicated to movies. Especially for book to movie adaptations or game to movie adaptations like Need for Speed, it is important to recognize the existing community. For movie promotions like Need for Speed with an existing car enthusiast could get the NFS game community engaged in the production process that can spark people’s interest earlier in the movie making process.

Conclusion 

Overall Disney has set a high standard for other organizations looking to adapt to social media. Disney Studios have already established a strong social media presence that conveys a personable organization. The company has taken the initiative to adapt to number of different social media platforms relatively quickly. It is also important to integrate the social media interaction with the Disney enthusiast into the company’s creative process.