News
Tracking Surveys Suffer 'Heartbreak'
By Robert Marich
October 8, 2007 -- The Ben Stiller comedy The Heartbreak Kid pulled $14 million in box office for the three day weekend, which was a disappointment to its distributor and a big surprise in many quarters of the film research industry. Four research companies conducting “tracking surveys” – which attempt to forecast openings – projected $14-20 million, with most estimates at the high end of that range.
Explanations of what went wrong vary. Heartbreak Kid is an R-rated comedy, whose audience classification limited its audience and what Paramount/DreamWorks could present in advertising to promote the film. However, an R-rating didn’t seem to hurt Universal’s Knocked Up, which pulled $30.7 million its opening three-day in June.
Hopes were high for Heartbreak Kid, given it re-unites Stiller and the Farrelly brothers, who collaborated on 1998 blockbuster There’s Something About Mary, which grossed $176.5 million domestically and was also R rated.
Mary opened at about the same level its first weekend, but Heartbreak’s downbeat reviews make it unlikely to follow Mary’s track. Still, poor reviews alone wouldn’t be expected to depress the opening weekend—since audiences of raunchy comedies are not greatly influenced by reviews (high-brow critics often hate such films and audiences know that).
The off-the-mark forecasts by tracking surveys can be blamed on larger trends causing headaches for the entire consumer research field. It’s getting increasingly difficult to recruit satisfactory test audiences because of proliferation of cell phones (the location of cell phone users is not clear unlike fixed wire lines). Also, shopping mall traffic is increasingly difficult to access for “mall intercepts.” Finally, consumers have grown distrustful when approached for surveys because of abuses by sales companies that masquerade as researchers.
“Ten years ago, simply phoning up households to randomly solicit participation in a telephone survey or to extend an invitation to a test screening reached a fairly wide audience spectrum,” notes Marketing to Moviegoers: A Handbook. “However, today’s households increasingly opt for unlisted telephone numbers and use call blocking.”
Four companies provide film distributors with tracking survey data, which polls consumers about awareness of films and intent to go. Because there are four players, there is more than one tracking figure floating around executives suites in Hollywood. Films are tracked about six weeks before premiere, and film distributors use the information to help decide marketing spending in the final critical days before release.
Marketing to Moviegoers also points out these landmarks. When surprise hit Passion of the Christ exploded a the box office in February 2004, most tracking forecasts underestimated its ultimate performance by a wide margin. Another famous miss came in June 2000, when tracking data indicated that Mel Gibson historical family drama The Patriot would beat George Clooney-disaster drama The Perfect Storm, but Storm came out on top by a wide margin.
Update Oct 15.... Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? the following week proved another tracking study bender. The film grossed $21.5 million opening weekend, above the $10-15 million generally forcast for the Lionsgate release. Perry's sophisticated comedies have a brand-name like appeal to upmarket and black audiences, moving separately from general audience trends.