Interview with Alexandre Sagakian, VP Research & Data, Qriously
Tell us a bit about the history of the company. When did it start and what mission did you have in mind?
Qriously is a data and intelligence platform that accesses the mindsets of billions of people all over the world by running short in-app surveys on mobile devices. Answers to those survey questions are used to unearth valuable insights and engage relevant audiences. We were founded in 2010 with the mission of understanding what today’s consumers are thinking at a particular moment in time and over time. We have raised over $10 million from top-tier VCs in the U.S. and the U.K. to build our technology and our ad, data, and intelligence products for our customers in marketing, finance, and politics.
How can exhibitors and studios benefit from your services?
Exhibitors can use us to gather critical insights to drive more traffic into their theaters and improve overall moviegoer experience; get an independent measure of moviegoers’ intentions to see upcoming movies by demographic group to optimize their buying and scheduling strategy at a local/regional level; test new offers that might appeal to moviegoers and increase customer traffic or high-margin concessions sales; and benchmark moviegoers’ satisfaction and profiles against main competitors in all key dimensions.
Studios can better adapt their movie offerings and optimize their promotion and advertising budgets; track awareness, engagement, and intention to see upcoming movies on a weekly basis up to 12 months ahead of their release; track the fast-moving home entertainment trends (video streaming, DVD) to better adapt their strategy; test new movie concepts or trailers on a large group of moviegoers; and use our image-based survey capabilities to test film-marketing creative.
What are the benefits of your mobile interview methodology?
There are three main benefits over traditional methods such as panels. International: by using the mobile ad infrastructure we have access to 100-plus countries, making comparisons between countries quick and easy. In an increasingly global movie industry, this is a key advantage. Representativeness: we have access to 1.2 billion devices and can usually reach 50 percent of the population in developed countries. This means we can be more representative of the market, especially on key movie audiences, like males between 13 and 24 who are very hard to reach. Speed: we can gather tens of thousands of interviews per day, meaning we literally collect consumer opinions in real time. This allows us to pick up any trend or get instant feedback, for example, following an event, trailer drop, movie release, DVD release, and so on.
This kind of access allows studios to measure consumer behaviors faster and more accurately as entertainment and platform options multiply. This will not only yield greater advertising efficiency but can inform content, identify untapped audiences, and much more.
Tell us more about your international capabilities and how you run international surveys?
We can run surveys in pretty much any country where there is a mobile ad infrastructure, which is more than 100. Right now there is no other platform that can roll over surveys in so many countries using the same sampling and interview method. So we offer the best way to compare international markets.
For each country we need to take into account the smartphone penetration rate and our reach to figure out how representative we can be. We also localize questionnaires to local languages and culture. For example, an ethnicity/race or income question might be OK in the U.S. but not in some European or Asian markets.
How do you believe big data can transform the cinema industry in the coming years?
There is no question big data plays an increasing role in the cinema industry, from improving box office predictions to measuring ROI of P&A spend and better understanding moviegoers’ preferences.
But big data alone is often not enough. It might answer what (what people watch, what people want) and how (which channel) but not who (demographic or moviegoer profile) and, most important, why (why people like a movie, why they prefer to watch it on DVD). That’s why we believe in a mixed approach, combining big data and survey-based data to get a holistic view of the consumer. We’re actually working on partnerships with some big data analytics companies in the movie space, so stay tuned for more news coming soon.
Share this post