Review sites like Rotten Tomatoes curate the type of customer engagement that would be the envy of any retail brand. Users of the site passionately argue about whether the latest movie was any good—and the users check in regularly, too. Now, Rotten Tomatoes is making an active attempt to further increase that level of engagement.
The brand has announced plans to modernize its audience rating system through a series of product enhancements, with the first phase featuring new functionality for pre-released movies. With the development of its new audience rating system underway, Rotten Tomatoes’ goal is to deliver a destination for fans to share their opinions of movies and TV Shows, while connecting with other fans in a community of pop culture lovers.
“Over the past few years, Rotten Tomatoes has been evolving into a robust movie and TV show recommendations platform that celebrates the views of professional critics and fans alike, and encourages discussion and debate,” says Ara Nalbandian, Head of Product and Technology, Rotten Tomatoes. “We continue to invest in our product to deliver useful and relevant resources for fans and are in development on new tools to help fans express their opinions and connect with others.”
Rotten Tomatoes plans to roll out a range of enhancements to its audience ratings system in coming months, such as new audience score iconography, personalization and community features, verified reviews from ticket purchasers, and enhanced security to protect its data integrity. The first round of product enhancements includes:
- A streamlined user interface positions the Audience Score adjacent to the Tomatometer Score, which represents the collective opinions of thousands of professional critics, giving fans easy access to compare and contrast critic’s and fan’s view of movies and TV shows.
- Prior to a movie’s release, fans will no longer be able to leave written comments or reviews. That functionality will be available once the movie releases into theaters.
- The fan “want to see” score, which was previously represented as a percentage, will now be presented as a raw number that will be tallied in real time. This change seeks to eliminate the confusion that sometimes occurred between the “want to see” score and the “audience score,” which is also represented as a percentage.
- During the roll out of new audience rating features, Rotten Tomatoes will call out enhancements on the site and link to a product update blog, where users can find explanations.
- In addition to providing a destination for fans to share their movie and TV show opinions on the Rotten Tomatoes website and social platforms, fans will also be able to participate in Rotten Tomatoes’ marquee live event “Your Opinion Sucks: Fans vs. Critics” at various festivals like SXSW in Austin this March and other regional festivals and conferences during the year.
Review aggregators aren’t top-of-mind among loyalty marketers, but they’re worthy of consideration. In particular, Rotten Tomatoes has built a community of fans (both of film and the site) who regularly check-in with the brand and identify it as a “go-to” for criticism. These enhancements are Rotten Tomatoes’ way of keeping that community engaged and loyal to the brand.