Spring Festival Big Test: Ticket compensation is back, and online ticketing is sinking deeply

At a time when all parties lament the recovery of the film market, we have also seen the trend of Internet ticketing platforms starting from distribution to penetrate the film industry in all aspects. During the Spring Festival, the number of people watching movies has increased sharply, the time for word-of-mouth fermentation has been greatly shortened, and all assessment indicators have been infinitely enlarged. This is the best time to test the online and offline business level of each family. Can players successfully clear customs?

From "Journey to the West to Conquering Demons" to "Journey to the West to Conquering Demons", from 2013 to 2017, the mainland's Spring Festival movie market has undergone tremendous changes.

In 2013, Huayi Brothers promoted and released "Journey to the West to Conquering Demons". The model was very traditional: watching films in advance, business promotion, and booking activities. In 2015,"Mermaid" once again pushed "guaranteed distribution" to the forefront. Word of mouth is no longer the most important keyword in film marketing, and films have become commodities operated by capital. In 2017, with online ticket sales accounting for more than 80%, film distribution has become increasingly data-based. The core of the Spring Festival test has changed from film content and reputation in the past to precision marketing of big data and all-round and in-depth operation of film content.

After experiencing a downturn in the film market in the second half of last year, this year's Spring Festival box office grew strongly. Data provided to reporters by the lithography era showed that the national box office in January was 4.85 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26%. It was the highest box office in history, of which 2.44 billion yuan was contributed from the 30th to the 4th day of the lunar new year.

Pre-sale ticket subsidies far exceed last year

's and last year's Spring Festival. This year's ticket subsidies are even more intense. Compared with the pre-sale data of tickets to supplement the "New Year's Day" on the "29th of the New Year" in two years, the 58.04 million yuan for "Journey to the West" is higher than the 53.04 million yuan for "Mermaid" in the same period last year. Box office pre-sales. A theater manager in Qingyang District, Chengdu, told reporters that the filming arrangements for this year's Spring Festival were arranged very early. The competition was fierce, and the intensity of ticket replacement was significantly higher than last year.

If you are good at planning Spring Festival movie-watching activities in advance, you don't need to spend too much money on movie tickets. Several blockbusters on the Taobao ticket have had promotions of 8.8 yuan. If you are good at price comparison, you can even buy 6.6 yuan "Kung Fu Yoga" on Baidu glutinous rice. On the other hand, microfilm's entertainment tickets will launch a family package package discount based on the family fun characteristics of the movie, allowing for advance pre-sales of movie tickets. In 2016, various e-commerce platforms that vowed to make profits couldn't care so much. The Spring Festival festival broke the principle of "making up as few votes as possible".

In addition to low-cost movie tickets directly on the platform, there is a new way to make up for tickets: entertainment tickets with social advantages have planned many online activities for the Spring Festival. In the QQ channel, entertainment ticket recipients participated in the QQ2017 "LBS+AR" Sky Red Packet Event, distributing movie viewing red envelopes at 4.25 million entrances in 369 cities across the country for four consecutive days. On the entertainment ticket APP, WeChat, and mobile Q portals, launch Spring Festival interactive games and send out movie red envelopes. From January 6 to February 14, 10,000 special movie tickets of 9.9 yuan and 19.9 yuan will be distributed every day.

Pre-sale ticket supplements directly raised the starting line for the Spring Festival.

"Journey to the West to the Demon" is the most pre-sold movie. 34 hours before its release, pre-sales set a new record in film history: exceeding 100 million. In contrast,"The Waves and Waves", which was the latest to be finalized and the latest to be pre-sold, suffered a lot. While the other three Spring Festival films began to be pre-sold at ultra-low prices early on,"Ride the Waves and Waves" had not yet taken any action. It wasn't until 60% of the other films combined were locked in that "The Waves and Waves" began to be pre-sold at a low price of 12.8 yuan. The price of 12.8 yuan has no advantage compared with the ticket prices of 8.8 yuan and 9.9 yuan for other films.

However, the high ticket subsidy also has certain side effects on the movie itself.

From an industry perspective, box office subsidies can stimulate pre-sales and thereby increase the number of screenings, but there will also be cases where theaters will open false screenings in order to defraud tickets. To give an extreme example, if the original price of a movie ticket is 60 yuan and the online ticketing platform sells for 19 yuan, then the platform needs to subsidize 41 yuan to the theater. The theater can buy the entire 100-seat movie ticket at a cost of 19 yuan per ticket, thereby receiving a subsidy of 4100 yuan from the platform, so that the theater can make a net profit of 4100 yuan-1900 yuan =2200 yuan. This kind of operation is much simpler and faster than directly participating in box office accounts.

From the perspective of the film itself, the ticket subsidy effect is too strong and can quickly gather audiences for the film, but it also amplifies reputation in any direction. On the one hand, the high number of tickets on the first day of "Journey to the West" pushed its first day box office to 342.8 million yuan. After calibration, it won the runner-up in the mainland's single-day box office (the champion was "Speed and Passion 7"), but it also allowed more viewers to see the film with still shortcomings. Without timely controlling the reputation of viewers who had watched the movie, the box office of "Journey to the West to the Demon" began to plummet on the second day of the Lunar New Year, and even lost to "Kung Fu Yoga" on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year.

The

counterattack of "Kung Fu Yoga" in depth in online ticketing benefits from the dual role of online and offline. This film was jointly released by Microfilm Entertainment, and we can also see Taopiao and Baidu Netcom in the release list.

Yuyue is a new brand launched by Microfilm in September last year. Its core businesses are Yuyue Film Industry and Yuyue Publishing. This year's Spring Festival "Kung Fu Yoga" and "Bear Haste" are both jointly released by Microfilm Entertainment. According to Microfilm Times, when releasing films, they use big data to assist film companies in formulating distribution strategies, strengthen analysis of film type preferences in different cities, theaters, and business districts, and provide data support and analysis suggestions for film layout plans.

Big data and online seat selection and ticket sales are the basic skills of ticketing platforms. It is worth noting that their efforts are expanding offline. "Troubles in India" may be a good example of the in-depth implementation of online ticketing.

On December 31 last year, Wang Baoqiang spent one day celebrating the New Year's Eve with the audience in Zengcheng and Dongguan, Guangzhou. On January 1, he flew directly to Chengdu to celebrate New Year's Day with the audience. In 60 days, Wang Baoqiang ran roadshows in 50 cities. According to Cat's Eye's data, the audience for "Making a fuss in Tianzhu" is mainly in the second, third and fourth tier cities, so the film's roadshows are arranged in Lanxiang Technical School, Vocational College and other places.

In fact, in early December last year, Enlight Pictures was responsible for Wang Baoqiang's roadshow to promote "The Big Bang" and handed over the offline distribution of the film to Cat's Eye Films. Before and after the film's release, Light is only responsible for the online promotion of the film. As an online ticketing platform and ticket replacement party, Cat Eye undertakes work such as communication and coordination of movie studios and signing ticket replacement agreements.

Cat's Eye revealed that in addition to offline roadshows, materials from "Making a fuss in India" cover 110372 stores in 245 cities. The reason why it can be successfully launched in these restaurants, shopping malls and supermarkets is due to Cat's "Meituan" background.

According to data, the box office in January was concentrated in second-and third-tier cities, and the box office of "Journey to the West to the Demon", which entered the Spring Festival, was significantly stronger in second-and fourth-tier cities. These places, which are relatively further away from the Internet, need the stimulation of offline activities and roadshows more.

Films without online ticketing support eventually withdrew from the Spring Festival.

At the beginning, there were about ten films scheduled for the Spring Festival. In addition to the "Journey to the West and Conquering the Demon","Troubles in the Sky","Kung Fu Yoga","Wind and Waves","Forgetfulness Village" and "Bear Infested-Fantasy Space", there are also "Happy Comedian","Battle against the God of Cookery","Everything I Say Is True", and "Rules of the Game".

On January 17, the comedy film "Happy Comedian" starring Yue Yunpeng, Sun Yue and others and starring in Mr. Bean released the theme song MV and announced that the release date of the film would be postponed. The theme song of the film "Five Thousand Years of Habihado" is adapted from the classic Spring Festival divine song "Congratulations". The entire film with obvious "family fun" color is obviously for the Spring Festival, but if you look closely at the producers of the film: Kashgar Comedians Alliance Film Co., Ltd., Beijing Huangzhe Culture Co., Ltd., and Beijing Deyunshe Cultural Communication Co., Ltd., there are no online ticketing companies. Many film critics blame the change of "Happy Comedian" on audience fatigue about Yue Yunpeng. In fact, the inability to participate in the ticket replacement war may be the real reason for withdrawing from the Spring Festival season.

Equally embarrassing is "Everything I Say Is True". The film was directed by Liu Yiwei and starred by Xiao Shenyang. It was full of joy, but it was eventually re-edited and exited the Spring Festival War. Its publicity company only has Beijing Magic Vision Film Culture Communication Co., Ltd., how can it compete with "Journey to the West to the Demon Chapter", which combines cat's eyes and ticket buying tickets? However,"Rules of the Game" starring He Rundong and Gulinaza did not have any producers who were good at online ticket sales, and was eventually relocated to the first Friday after the Spring Festival (February 10).

Online ticketing has redefined publicity and has become an inseparable part of movies. As Internet companies that are good at making products put down their positions and sink deeper into offline, these publishers who started online will soon penetrate the entire industry chain.

Editor: yvette