Insights
What the data reveals.
Research findings and case studies from Audience Evidence™ — what we learn when we measure how audiences actually experience film.
The science
What Audience Evidence™ reveals.
Traditional feedback measures memory. Audience Evidence measures experience. The difference is significant — and it changes how creators make decisions.
The Peak-End Rule
People don't remember experiences as an average. They disproportionately remember peak moments — the most emotionally significant — and end moments. A film that peaks early but ends weakly will be remembered as weaker than it was.
The Memory Gap
Post-screening surveys consistently overestimate positive sentiment compared to in-session measurement. Audiences reconstruct their experience through the lens of how it ended — not how it actually unfolded.
Engagement Patterns
Audience engagement is not linear. Most films have distinct engagement peaks and troughs. Understanding where audiences disengage — and why — is the most actionable intelligence a creator can have.
Case study
The Naked Gun (2025) — Teaser Trailer
Audience Evidence™ was applied to the teaser trailer for The Naked Gun (2025) to measure real-time audience engagement and emotional response across six experience dimensions — capturing what audiences felt moment-by-moment, not just what they remembered afterwards.
Experience dimensions measured
What we measured
- Real-time emotional response across the full trailer runtime
- Six-dimension experience scoring per audience segment
- Peak and end moment identification
- Comparison between in-session response and post-screening recall
Finding
The trailer showed strong Clarity and Safety scores — audiences understood the premise and felt comfortable with the tone — but Connection lagged, suggesting the emotional hook wasn't landing as intended for the target demographic.
Opportunity
By identifying the specific moments where Connection dropped, the creative team could refine emotional cues and re-test — a feedback loop that traditional post-screening surveys simply cannot provide.
Case study
Movie Trailer Audience Evidence™
A detailed look at how we applied the Audience Evidence™ methodology to measure real-time audience response to movie trailers — capturing emotional engagement, peak moments, and experience dimensions that traditional research misses.
Download case studyMovie Trailer Case Study
PDF · Audience Evidence™ Research
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