The Tomato Meter continues to stress film studios, critics and sometimes even moviegoers.
A recent news piece caught our attention because of its strong message for communicators. (Hey, that’s us.)
The news piece reported that studios were now fiddling with movie release times and the locations of review posts and whether to show those reviews to counter poor Rotten Tomatoes scores. Some studies indicate that the scores influence attendance or may shut down conversation on a movie, which then impacts attendance.
What’s up? We have three observations:
- The consumer, ever more educated about product, including movies, decides. Not the studios.
- Apparently Fandango includes the Tomatometer scores on their ticket-buying site. This would indicate a customer focus—whether it helps the specific movie in question to boost sales or not.
- The news piece we’ve linked to has a quote we agree with: “The best way for studios to combat the ‘Rotten Tomatoes Effect’ is to make better movies, plain and simple.” You can like it or not but digital has enabled customers to bypass both studios and critics—and converse with other consumers, people like themselves. Here’s the bottom line: More choice means if you are not relentlessly focused on the viewer or listener, you could be hurt, bypassed or even forgotten.
Keep your consumer in your sight and you will not only survive but thrive.
