Wharton study gives Hollywood two thumbs down

films will be popular. Watch out, Siskel and Ebert. Two Wharton researchers believe they have developed a plan that would revolutionize the way movies are made, turning Hollywood's focus from the marketing board room to the emotions of moviegoers. Marketing Professor Jehoshua Eliashberg and Mohanbir Sawhney, a doctoral student in marketing, argue in a recent paper that movie producers could improve their box office draw by abandoning current marketing techniques. The two researchers say they are trying to combat what they see as the dominant ideology in movie production. "The state of the art is now gut feeling," Sawhney said. "We are doing better than gut feeling." The researchers call for a move away from demographics as the prevalent tool in movie marketing and design. Eliashberg and Sawney believe that a movie's success or failure is determined at the personal level, rather than by age and gender. Their findings challenge the heart of current marketing tactics. "The interesting things that we found to be characteristic cross demographics," Sawhney said Tuesday. Eliashberg is in Europe and could not be reached for comment. The paper outlining their research is entitled, "Modeling Goes to Hollywood: Predicting Individual Differences in Movie Enjoyment." It describes the model and its implications for the movie industry. The authors criticize current techniques used to market movies as inherently flawed and "rather crude." They argue that there should be more focus on how people decide to see a movie. "Choosing between two movies is not like choosing between two types of toothpaste," Sawhney said, adding that toothpaste selection involves "using your mind." People who go the movies are seeking to satisfy a need based on their desire for arousal, Sawhney said. "Most times when you go to see a movie you are not making a rational choice," he said. "You want to go and enjoy yourself." Sawhney and Eliasberg view the marketing applications of their research to be only half of the picture. They believe that the techniques they have developed for measuring audience response could be used to edit films more effectively. "Given an audience, [a director] can determine what sort of movie should be produced," he said. He said a more audience-friendly effect, for example, could be achieved by "changing the arrangement of scenes to reduce violence and increase the sex." In Sawhney's vision of the future, computers would use the model to enhance the movie-viewing experience. Digital interactive movies, based on current multimedia technology, could be adapted to create "custom designed movies" organized according to an individual's perferences. A potential viewer would "just dial up a movie and have knobs where you would adjust violence and sex and the overall rating," he explained. "It then puts together the combination of scenes based on your preference." Directors like Steven Speilberg need not fear the unemployment line, however. Sawhney believes that the model "will never substitute for a writer or director." The applications of the study are not just limited to movies. Future versions of their modeling techniques could be used to enhance many recreational activities that rely on emotional involvement. "We would like to see it go beyond movies to rides in an amusement park," Sawhney said. "Even to music, theater and opera." The day of personalized roller coasters is not around the corner, though. And even the movie industry will have to wait. The model has only been tested once and Sawhney and Eliashberg would like to hone their theories and test the model a few more times. "We are keeping things quiet. At this stage it is an academic project -- We wouldn't want to offer a half-baked product to Hollywood," Sawhney said. But the word is already out. The project, a result of Sawhney's graduate coursework, has received extensive national and international media attention. The model is based on three factors: the movie viewer's personality, his or her mood at the time of the viewing, and the content of the movie. The model, essentially a mathematical equation, allows the researchers to turn emotion into a grahpable function. Although they are the fourth group of researchers to use these specific criteria in movie analysis, they are the first ones to reduce the study to an equation. Sawhney conceded that many people are skeptical of their approach. But he said, "Whenever you do something different there are a lot of critics... We grant that you can't capture all the artistic elements in a mathematical equation."

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