Keep It Simple Stimuli: Brain-Vetted Elements of Movie Trailers Predict Opening Weekend Ticket Sales

We propose a novel method to predict movie ticket sales based on the stimulus complexity of the associated advertisements (i.e. movie trailers). We identify characteristics of movie trailers (e.g. semantic and visual clarity) that promote neural similarity (i.e. CrossBrain-Correlation) among moviegoers at a commercial theater and foreshadow commercial success. INTRODUCTION The film industry has enticed consumers with movie trailers for over a century. When the first movie trailer debuted in 1913, it was heralded as “an entirely new and unique stunt” (Hoefling 2010). Now ubiquitous and highly competitive, movie trailers are the products of substantial investment. A single movie trailer can take six months to produce and Hollywood spends over $3 billion per year on cinematic advertising (Faughnder 2015). Putting that into perspective, annual movie trailer production costs more than buying a movie ticket for every person in the United States (average ticket price is $8.70, IMDb.com, Inc., Seattle, Washington; US population is 323 million, US Census Bureau). Given the film industry’s high upfront advertising costs, there is substantial interest in advance predictions of the commercial success of movies. Researchers have identified potential early indicators of financial outcomes such as aspects of a movie’s script or whether the movie is a sequel (Eliashberg et al. 2006). In particular, Eliashberg et al. report that sequels tend to outperform stand-alone movies in ticket sales and that advertising for sequels is more efficient since moviegoers have prior knowledge of the base story. Additionally, there has been a rapid increase in scholarly attention to the effects of individual cast members on film revenue. A star actor’s participation in a film is often interpreted as implicit endorsement of the project, and endorsements by popular figures have been broadly successful in advertising campaigns (Choi et al. 2005). Specifically, a star actor garners an average of $3 million in additional ticket sales for a film, but often the compensation paid to these actors cancels out the marginal increase in theatrical revenues to the film studio (Elberse 2007). Eliashberg et al. also cites the rising cost of talent (especially for sequels) as a factor that complicates revenue predictions. High revenue movies, by definition, attract a wide audience, which suggests that the corresponding movie trailers were broadly appealing to the moviegoer population. Qualitatively, members of a captivated audience behave similarly: laughing, flinching, or gasping at the same time, looking in the same direction, and maintaining an attentive physical posture. Recent research has identified neural underpinnings for such behavioral resemblances; neuroscientists have discovered that brains act similarly while processing certain stimuli, such as memorable movies, television shows, advertisements, and stories (Hasson et al. 2004, Furman et al. 2007, Hasson et al. 2008ab, Avidan et al. 2009, Regev et al. 2013, Barnett et al. 2015). These results suggest that measuring neural similarity is a promising technique to distill aspects of stimuli that contribute to collective appeal and action. In this work, we offer a neuroscientific lens to characterize basic elements of successful movie trailers. We use portable electroencephalography (EEG) systems to record the neural activity of moviegoers at a commercial movie theater, and then we compute neural similarity throughout each of the trailers (Study 1: EEG Field Study). We hypothesize that movie trailers that promote relative neural similarity will be more memorable (i.e., higher recall rates) as measured in a survey immediately following the movie. In this survey, we also confirm the supremacy of trailers by asking moviegoers which factors influence their decision-making process; the majority of moviegoers use trailers to decide which movie to watch. After movies are released, there are countless factors that influence moviegoer purchase decisions, including online user reviews, recommendations, popular excitement, and critical acclaim. However, before the movies are released, most of the aforementioned factors are unavailable (by definition) to moviegoers; therefore, trailers are even more important regarding purchase decisions of opening weekend movie tickets. Therefore, we measure the commercial success of a trailer as its corresponding movie’s opening weekend domestic ticket sales. Thus, we additionally hypothesize that neural similarity during movie trailers will correlate with their respective opening weekend box office performances. In Study 2 (Characterization of Stimuli), we dissect quantifiable stimulus attributes of movie trailers. We hypothesize that numerous measures of complexity will be negatively correlated with neural similarity; conversely, simpler advertisements have more uniform effects across multiple brains. We investigate standard measures of semantic complexity, such as the number of words, sentences, questions, and unique speakers per unit of time (Flesch 1948, Kincaid et al. 1975). Additionally, we measure the proportion of speaking time versus non-speaking. We also study visual complexity, which we assess as the average entropy (i.e., statistical randomness) of each frame of the movie trailer; low-entropy images are relatively uniform in intensity whereas high-entropy images have many bright areas and dark areas (see example in Figure 1). Accordingly, high-entropy images often have many focal points for visual attention (Itti et al. 2005). In turn, we hypothesize that these stimulus characteristics will correlate with neural engagement and will subsequently influence opening weekend ticket sales. Lastly, we propose a linear model to predict the commercial success of a movie based on its trailer. Our model incorporates previously studied indicators (i.e., whether the movie is a sequel) along with the semantic and visual complexity of its advertisement. We seek to demonstrate that stimulus attributes that facilitate neural processing can, themselves, be applied towards predicting theatrical revenues. 286 / Keep It Simple Stimuli: Brain-Vetted Elements of Movie Trailers Predict Opening Weekend Ticket Sales