Vista shares rise 3.5% as Fox sign-up to Movio

Vista shares rise 3.5% as Fox sign-up to Movio shows 'proof of life' for analytics

By Paul McBeth

July 11 (BusinessDesk) - Vista Group International shares climbed 3.5 percent after 20th Century Fox Film became the newest studio customer for its Movio unit in what the Kiwi firm sees as proving the value of the analytics business.

The shares climbed 20 cents to $5.95, adding to a 2.7 percent gain so far this year after Auckland-based Vista signed a five-year deal with Fox to license anonymous Movio data.

Movio provides marketing data analytics and campaign management software for movie theatres, film distributors and studios, giving them real-time information for about 34 million moviegoers' activity and transactions, of which more than 14 million are in the US.

The deal is the latest in a string of transactions that includes US cinema advertiser Screenvision Direct and marketing agency Epsilon, and builds on the 42 percent boost in annual revenue Vista generated from Movio in calendar 2016.

Brian Cadzow, commercial and legal director, told BusinessDesk the Fox deal was Movio's biggest to date, and that the unit has the potential to match Vista's cinema business in size.

"20th Century Fox is going to get the most out of it and are planning to use it in a way that they'll get considerable value from what we're providing," Cadzow said. "This is a positive step and shows proof of life for Movio."

Cadzow said other studios who have signed up to Movio have been feeling their way around the service, and are only now beginning to change the way they use data to market their movies.

Vista is holding an investor day in Auckland later this month and is scheduled to report first-half earnings on Aug. 24.

(BusinessDesk)

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