347 Eligible Contenders
The recently announced Oscar nominations created their increasingly familiar raised eyebrow mehs.
As an award, this century it does seem rather keen on diminishing its own relevance with each annual iteration.
Yet it remains, for now, the top accolade.
What interested me from a Sales perspective this year, was learning how many movies qualified to be considered in the Best Film category; 347.
On one level, I was surprised at how few this number is. After all, that’s less than one-a-day. Then on another, given the almost obscene amount of money making a movie can cost – despite our technological leaps, access diversification and post-Blair Witch innovations – it could also be viewed as many many.
Eight films are up for the gong. Which means if you produced a film released in 2018, you’ve a roughly one in forty chance of being in The Academy’s top drawer. 1:43, to be roundedly precise.
This reminds me of many a territory size calculation.
Even if you’re an Account Manager for a single large client enjoying intimacy with their budgetary formulations, it is rare to know the exact extent of your potential target market.
How do you work it out for your turf?
Salesteams historically like to use a definitive figure and grow from there. Such as the typical customer placement or deal size. If ‘x’ makes your annual number, then you’ll need, say 3x in your total funnel. Then a multiple beyond that of actual market possibility for a territory to yield the desired return.
It’s an exercise littered with potholes.
In reality, only a fraction of the 347 movies had any chance of being nominated. Alternative lists are popular clickbait from critics. One London-based broadsheet saw their quartet of reviewers select thirteen between their preferred fives. So even if you totted up each other option, you’d still probably only end up with a couple of dozen, tops.
Which is perhaps more in keeping with our own individual universes. 347 to 24ish to 8?
As I often say to funnel builders, it is not a numbers game, it’s a ratios game.
The question is, have you homed in on these for your ambitions?