The Spring Festival test: Ticket subsidies make a comeback, and online ticketing sinks deeply

From "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" to "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back", from 2013 to 2017, the mainland Spring Festival movie market has undergone tremendous changes.

In 2013, Huayi Brothers promoted "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" in a very traditional way: advance screenings, business promotion, private screenings, etc. In 2015, "The Mermaid" pushed "guaranteed release" to the forefront again. Word of mouth is no longer the most important keyword in movie marketing, and movies have become commodities operated by capital. In 2017, with online ticket sales exceeding 80% of the market share, movie distribution has become more and more data-based. The core of the Spring Festival test has changed from film content and word of mouth to big data precision marketing and all-round and in-depth operation of movie content.

After experiencing a downturn in the film market in the second half of last year, this year's Spring Festival box office has grown strongly. According to data provided by Weiying Times to Tencent Technology, the national box office in January was 4.85 billion, an increase of 26% year-on-year, the highest box office in January in history, of which New Year's Eve to the fourth day of the first lunar month contributed 2.44 billion.

At a time when all parties are lamenting the recovery of the film market, we have also seen the trend of Internet ticketing platforms penetrating the film industry from distribution. During the Spring Festival, the number of moviegoers increased dramatically, the time for word-of-mouth fermentation was greatly shortened, and all assessment indicators were infinitely magnified. It is the best time to test the online and offline business levels of various companies. Can players pass the level smoothly?

Pre-sale ticket subsidies far exceed last year

Compared with last year's Spring Festival, this year's ticket subsidies are more intense. Comparing the pre-sale data of the ticket subsidies on the "first day of the Lunar New Year" in the past two years, the pre-sale of "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" was 58.04 million yuan, which was higher than the 53.04 million yuan of "The Mermaid" in the same period last year. A cinema manager in Qingyang District, Chengdu told Tencent Technology that the schedule of this year's Spring Festival was arranged very early, the competition was very fierce, and the intensity of ticket subsidies was significantly higher than last year.

If you are good at planning your Spring Festival movie-watching activities in advance, you don’t need to spend too much money on movie tickets. Tao Piao Piao has had several blockbuster movies on sale for 8.8 yuan. If you are good at price comparison, you can even buy "Kung Fu Yoga" for 6.6 yuan on Baidu Nuomi. And Weiying's Yupiaoer has launched a family package discount based on the family-friendly characteristics of the movie, and opened advance pre-sales of movie tickets. The various e-commerce platforms that vowed to make profits in 2016 can no longer care about so much, and the Spring Festival period has broken the principle of "minimizing ticket subsidies".

In addition to the low-priced movie tickets directly on the platform, there are new ways to subsidize tickets: Yupiaoer, which has social advantages, has planned many online activities for the Spring Festival. On the QQ channel, Yupiaoer participated in the QQ2017 "LBS+AR" sky-dropping red envelope event, distributing movie red envelopes at 4.25 million entrances in 369 cities across the country for four consecutive days. On the Yupiaoer APP, WeChat, and mobile QQ entrances, a Spring Festival interactive game was launched to distribute movie red envelopes. From January 6 to February 14, 10,000 special movie tickets of 9.9 yuan and 19.9 yuan were distributed every day.

The pre-sale ticket subsidies directly raised the starting line of the Spring Festival period.

Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back is the movie with the most pre-sales. 34 hours before its release, pre-sales set a new record in film history: over 100 million. In comparison, Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves, which was scheduled the latest and started pre-sales the latest, suffered a lot. When the other three Spring Festival films started pre-sales at super low prices early, Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves had not made any moves. It was not until the other films locked in 60% of the screenings that Riding the Wind and Breaking the Waves started pre-sales at a low price of 12.8 yuan. The price of 12.8 yuan has no advantage over the ticket prices of 8.8 yuan and 9.9 yuan for other films.

However, high ticket subsidies also have certain side effects on the movie itself.

From an industry perspective, box office subsidies can stimulate pre-sales and increase the number of screenings, but there are also cases where theaters open fake screenings in order to defraud ticket subsidies. To give an extreme example, if the original price of a movie ticket is 60 yuan and the online ticketing platform sells it 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 obtaining a 4,100 yuan subsidy from the platform, so that the theater can make a net profit of 4,100 yuan - 1,900 yuan = 2,200 yuan. This operation is much simpler and faster than directly participating in the box office split.

From the perspective of the film itself, the ticket subsidy is too effective. It can quickly attract audiences for the film, but it also amplifies word of mouth in any direction. On the one hand, the high ticket subsidy on the first day of "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" pushed its first-day box office to 342.8 million yuan, and after calibration, it won the second place in the single-day box office in the mainland (the champion is "Fast and Furious 7"), but it also allowed more audiences to see the film with some shortcomings. Without timely control of the word of mouth of the audience who had already watched the film, the box office of "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" began to plummet on the second day of the Chinese New Year, and even lost to "Kung Fu Yoga" on the fourth day of the Chinese New Year.

Online ticketing is deeply implemented

The counterattack of "Kung Fu Yoga" is due to the dual effects of online and offline. The film is jointly distributed by Weiying Entertainment, and we can also see Tao Piaopiao and Baidu Netxun in the distribution list.

Yuyue is a new brand launched by Weiying in September last year. Its core businesses are Yuyue Pictures and Yuyue Distribution. This year's Spring Festival films "Kung Fu Yoga" and "Boonie Bears" were jointly distributed by Weiying Yuyue. According to Weiying Times, when distributing films, they use big data to assist film producers 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 scheduling plans.

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

On December 31 last year, Wang Baoqiang spent the New Year's Eve with the audience in Zengcheng, Guangzhou and Dongguan in one day, and flew directly to Chengdu on January 1 to celebrate the New Year's Day with the audience. In 60 days, Wang Baoqiang went on a roadshow in 50 cities. According to Maoyan's data, the audience of "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons 2" is mainly in second-, third- and fourth-tier cities, so the roadshow of the film was arranged in Lanxiang Technical School, vocational colleges and other places.

In fact, in early December last year, Enlight Pictures was responsible for Wang Baoqiang's roadshow to promote "Journey to the West: Conquering India", and handed over the offline distribution of the film to Maoyan Films. Before and after the film was released, Enlight was only responsible for the online promotion of the film. As an online ticketing platform and ticket subsidy provider, Maoyan was responsible for communicating with the cinemas to coordinate the screenings and signing ticket subsidy agreements.

Maoyan revealed that in addition to offline roadshows, the materials of "Journey to the West: Conquering India" covered 110,372 stores in 245 cities. The reason why it was successfully released in these restaurants, shopping malls, and supermarkets is that Maoyan's "Meituan" background played an indispensable role.

According to statistics from Microfilm Times, the box office in January was concentrated in second- and third-tier cities, and the box office of "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" during the Spring Festival was particularly strong in second-, third- and fourth-tier cities. These places, which are relatively far from the Internet, need more stimulation from offline activities and roadshows.

Films without online ticketing support eventually withdraw from the Spring Festival schedule

At the beginning, there were about ten films scheduled for the Spring Festival. In addition to the "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back", "Journey to India", "Kung Fu Yoga", "The Mermaid", "The Village of Forgetting" and "Boonie Bears: Fantasy Space", there are also "Happy Comedian", "The God of Cookery", "Everything I Said is True" and "Rules of the Game".

On January 17, the comedy film "Happy Comedians", starring Yue Yunpeng, Sun Yue and Mr. Bean, released its theme song MV and announced that the release date of the film would be postponed. The theme song of the film, "Happy Five Thousand Years", is adapted from the classic Spring Festival divine song "Congratulations". The whole film has a clear "family-friendly" color and is obviously made for the Spring Festival. However, if you look closely at the producers of the film: Kashgar Comedians Alliance Film Co., Ltd., Beijing Huangzhe Culture Co., Ltd., and Beijing Deyunshe Culture Communication Co., Ltd., there is no sign of any online ticketing party. Many film critics attributed the postponement of "Happy Comedians" to the audience's aesthetic fatigue with Yue Yunpeng, but in fact, the inability to participate in the ticket subsidy war may be the real reason for withdrawing from the Spring Festival.

Equally embarrassing is "What I Said Is True". This film, directed by Liu Yiwei and starring Xiao Shenyang, is full of comedy, but it was eventually postponed and withdrawn from the Spring Festival battle. Its only publicity company is Beijing Mowei Film Culture Communication Co., Ltd. How can it compete with "Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back" which has both Maoyan and Tao Piao Piao? "Game Rules" starring Peter Ho and Guli Nazha also has no producer who is good at online ticket sales, and was eventually postponed to the first Friday after the Spring Festival (February 10).

Online ticketing has redefined promotion and distribution, becoming an indispensable part of film production. As Internet companies that are good at making products lower their profile and go deep into offline, these online distributors will soon penetrate the entire industry chain.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.