Our Social Awards Season App Gears up for the Oscars
We’re a week away from the biggest night in Hollywood, and our DataViz, a collaboration between The Credits and global social analytics and monitoring firm Brandwatch, a truly one-of-a-kind Social Awards App, is proving its mettle for the second year in a row. The DataViz tracked, crunched and analyzed how critics and the public predicted who would the various categories in the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Golden Globes, Producers Guild of American Awards and Directors Guild of America Awards, creating percentages for each category and nominee. This is the only predictive model of its kind in the world, sifting through millions of award-related mentions from Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, as well as news outlets like The Hollywood Reporter and popular film blogs and forums. To give you a sense of just how much data is out there to sift through, consider what Brandwatch's quantitative analyst, Edward Cook, told us—90% of all data in the world is less than two years old. "When we capture this data, analyze and interpret it, we unlock an unmatched source of insight," Cook says.
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And now that the final (and biggest) award show of the season is nigh, the DataViz will soon reveal just how accurate movie lovers and critics alike are at predicting award season winners having looked at five major awards ceremonies, and, perhaps, shed a light on any divergence between the bodies that select the winners and the general public and critics who weigh in. The DataViz's aim is not solely to be the best awards season predictive model."The project aims to show which films fans would vote, were they given the chance," Cook says, "which allows us to answer pertinent questions: for which awards do critics and the public disagree? Which are the most contested nominees? What do the favorites have in common?" In a sense, the DataViz is learning how the public, critics and award governing bodies view the movies themselves, creating a clearer picture of what kinds of films (and their respective cast and crew) win, and, potentially, why.
A Brief History
When we teamed up with Brandwatch to unveil our first DataViz last year, we were confident it would perform well, but not that well. Of the 18 Oscar categories we tracked last year, the DataViz analyzed the public and critical predictions of who would win and, quantifying that insane amount of data, predicted the correct winner 83% of the time, which was the second most accurate percentage behind Tom O’Neil at Gold Derby according to a round-up created by Slate.
No content to rest on our laurels, Brandwatch and The Credits decided to increase the degree of difficulty by including four more awards ceremonies (including television awards)—a challenge for both the data crunching and the design. A whole bunch of improved technology (including beefing up the search strings—believe us, the particulars require an advanced degree in computer science to understand) has allowed this year’s DataViz to track an incredible amount of information
Some Interesting Statistics
Gender Demographics
It turns out that men and women value the five award shows we tracked differently (although the most online conversation, male and female, is generated by the Oscars). The Producer's and Director's Guild Awards garnered more online chatter from men on Twitter, while the SAGs and Golden Globes were of more interest to females.
There's a gender breakdown with the films themselves as well. Gravity was more resonant for male Tweeters, while Dallas Buyers Club and Philomena got stronger reactions from female Twitter users. In fact, men were least interested in Dallas Buyers Club of the nine Best Picture nominees, while women were least enthused about Gravity. The film that generated the same percentage of mentions for both men and women was 12 Years a Slave.
Nominee Categories
Dallas Buyers Club and American Hustle gained the most mentions about their acting. People who discussed Her most often commented on its soundtrack, while, unsurprisingly, much of the online chatter surrounding Gravity has been about the visual effects.
So Who's Going to Win?
Check in with our App today and throughout the week to see which film, actor and filmmaker is trending towards victory. As of today, February 24, here's how the most current online buzz surrounding some of the categories:
Best Picture
12 Years a Slave leads the pack with 42% of the online mentions, with Gravity behind it with 33%.
Best Director
Gravity's Alfonso Cuarón leads the pack with 60% of the mentions, with 12 Years a Slave's Steve McQueen behind him with 40%.
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett has a whopping 80% rate for her performance in Blue Jasmine. Her nearest competitor is Dame Judi Dench, with 20% of the mentions for her role in Philomena.
Best Actor
In what might come as a surprise, given all the McConaughey love at the moment (he's currently starring in the critically acclaimed HBO drama True Detective), it's Leonard DiCaprio leading the acting pack with 79% of the mentions for The Wolf of Wall Street. McConaughey is second with 13% of the mentions for Dallas Buyers Club.
For more up-to-the-minute data, give our DataViz a whirl. Who knows, we might just help you win your office pool.
