M+E Daily

By Lyndsey Schaefer

At Friday’s HITS Digital Marketing & Analytics Summit, 150 attendees converged in Hollywood to discuss the ways that digital marketers measure the chatter behind their brands, and how they’ve adapted the way that they talk to their diverse audience of digital consumers.

The day’s Content Keynote featured Dwight Caines, President, Worldwide Digital Marketing, Sony Pictures Entertainment, who discussed Sony’s model for tracking the performance of a theatrical title, from the social buzz and search volumes it receives to help project box office and home entertainment revenues. He explained how the data changed even as the audience sat listening to him. Caines remarked that technology innovation will continue to drive adoption, and that in the future, he hopes a two-screen experience will be the new norm, where consumers can sit in a theater and have the ability to interact on a second screen.

Elizabeth Stephenson, Partner, McKinsey & Company, leads the strategy and analysis center there. Stephenson painted a picture of the world in which emerging markets will become the primary growth engine of the global economy. She also challenged the audience to think about the myriad ways to reach the consumer in a world where everything is connected.

A diverse panel of digital marketing executives discussed the transformational opportunities for entertainment. Moderator Blake White, Director, Advisory, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said that the new normal is that digital is the central driver of future operating models, consumer relationships and revenue growth.

“We look at the whitespace between theatrical and home entertainment – it’s a lull period, but if you can get people to start talking about it there, it’s more about the emotional connection,” says Michele Edelman, Vice President, Direct to Consumer Marketing, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. “Social listening helps identify key influencers as part of your social strategy,” says Jane Mohon, Senior Vice President, Marketing Services, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

During the Retail Keynote, Dr. Phil Shelley, Chief Executive Officer, MetaScale & Chief Technology Officer, Sears Holding, described how Sears helped build customer loyalty using big data for personalized marketing and supply chain optimization. Shelley outlined Sears’ use of Hadoop for open source technology to handle enterprise workload, reduce strain on legacy platforms, reduce costs and bring new business opportunities. Shelley says that Sears used Hadoop to get down to customer specifics to use data as a single point of truth.

Twitter’s Robert J. Pietsch, Director of Sales, West for the social media company, shared that Twitter today has 140 million active users, sending out 400 million tweets per day. Pietsch shared examples where brands became human by using the conversation as a canvas. “Twitter allows you to take moments and turn them into momentum. It’s a canvas for broadcasting content, participating in cultural events and for driving transactions,” Pietsch says.

Twitter also drives traffic to movies. Twitter helped Paramount Pictures change the conversation surrounding its film, “Super 8,” which the audience originally thought was a horror film. Paramount and Twitter worked together to host exclusive Twitter screenings of “Super 8,” which then helped opening weekend box office surpass expectations by 52 percent. Pietsch said that the more tweets surrounding a film, the more the box office grows. He urged studios to use Twitter to build loyalty, engage with customers, appeal to franchise enthusiasts and use influencers to drive conversations.

A panel on metadata addressed the evolving technology and how it can be monetized. “It’s as much about defining the mapping the data as it is mastering and making it available internally as well as to digital clients,” says JR Yasgur, Vice President, Aggregated Metadata Management & Operations, Sony Pictures. “Metadata is essential. We’re launching new channels in new marketplaces around the world,” and having some way to promote the material in an online fashion is critical,” says Clyde Smith, Senior Vice President of New Technologies Fox Network Engineering and Operations. Panelists said that given the different platforms’ needs for different levels of metadata, having a gold standard for content is key.

“Hollywood storytelling is second to none in the world, and digital marketing and analytics are enabling the transformation of the industry,” Mishra says.