Exclusives

The world has undoubtedly changed forever.

Before 2020, media was already in transformation. Distribution windows were on the precipice and the streaming wars were heating up. Then came the pandemic. Production stopped. Distribution stopped. And the entertainment industry held its breath. But you can only hold your breath for so long.

The innovators started to do what they do best … disrupt. One such disruptor was — and continues to be — Invoke. Invoke CEO Gigi Wang saw an opportunity to re-invent the content screening business.

Virtual test screenings that enabled consumers to participate, from the place they consume content — their own homes — was the way of the future, as she saw it. Now, with the pandemic in full force, her vision was coming to fruition. And not only was this new method of test-screening content the way of the future, it was vital for the present.

As the entertainment industry struggled to regain footing with theater closures, halted in-person screenings, and social distancing in place, online consumer research became the secret ingredient top studios, networks, and streaming platforms needed to carry on during this difficult time.

And these companies soon realized Invoke’s disruptive methodology wasn’t just built for the pandemic era, it was set to transform old-school Hollywood testing practices into modern 21st century marketing strategies using digital technology capable of delivering accurate consumer data at scale and with velocity.

With a passion of a startup and being the first to introduce at home screenings, combined with being in the right place at the right moment, Invoke has been able to convince several studios to embrace this disruption. Since then, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing particularly during the recent upfronts series.

“I’m proud that Invoke has become a global leader in providing cutting-edge, digital marketing tools to respond to the challenges posed by this “new normal” and the ongoing shift to digital releases. Traditional, in-person methodologies are simply unable to capture the insight into consumer likes and dislikes and the motivations behind these likes and dislikes at the scale that we’re able to gather on our platform. Our clients leave our sessions with a real sense of what they have to do to optimize their content,” Wang said.

Invoke is using concepts that have been the bread and butter of the digital advertising industry for a while now to answer questions at an individual level about audience feelings, reactions and input to the content they are viewing. From the ideation stage, to rough cuts to the final product, Invoke is able to help content creators optimize the storylines, characters, key art, and marketing messages.

Invoke’s cloud-based testing platform engages panels of content testers to watch content and use their phones, tablets or laptops to answer open- and close-ended questions that give qualitative and quantitative insights back to the creators during the production process.

Invoke’s testing platform can also scale up as needed, meaning studios can test audiences at the local, national, or international levels, in 50 languages. What’s more, creatives and marketing executives participate in the test and can probe audiences on the fly as interesting answers come in or interact with them in real time through chat and other channels to better understand reactions. At the end of the test, results are available immediately so that the video can head to editing.

Complementing Invoke’s ground-breaking technology are other disrupters like Qualtrics and SAP. Once finished content has hit the market, post consumption is also key. What SAP calls Customer Experience (CX).

Qualtrics, an SAP company, is the market leader in CX measurement. CX is an emerging evolution of customer relationship management. Pre-release testing even with platforms that can scale are by nature, limited in size and scope. Post consumption the audience sample is much larger and can be used to drive marketing decisions or which distribution channel to put the content in next as we move to more and more streaming service based Direct to Consumer (D2C) models.

Through measuring customer sentiment post the consumption, post the Customer Experience (CX) we can answer the question “Did the content deliver against how it was projected to?” Content creators can compare the CX data with the Invoke reactions and predictions to form a closed loop process for audience/content engagement.

”Those companies who can understand their customer experience have been shown to deliver higher customer lifetime value, reduce customer churn, and introduce new products faster,” said Richard Whittington, SVP of media and entertainment for SAP

Companies like Fandango or the MLB use CX with SAP Qualtrics, to measure experience in a low touch, non-intrusive way that is then fed back into the operational processes to drive greater customer experience. True, it is too late to change the content, that should be done with the Invoke testing, but the post consumption experience can and should be fed back in a continuous loop to the next set of content “green lights.”

The end-to-end view of how the content is resonating with audiences during production, distribution and consumption is how the winners in the Media and Entertainment business will win in a world that has changed rapidly in the last 18 months.

That said, popcorn still is the de facto content snack, so don’t hold it too long!!

To find out more about Invoke, click here.

To find out more about SAP Qualtrics CX, click here.

By Richard Whittington, SVP, Media and Entertainment Industries, SAP