3 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Take from Hollywood's War on Rotten Tomatoes

Not long ago, you’d see a label certifying a movie as “fresh” on almost every Blu-ray case, movie poster and trailer. Times have changed, and Hollywood’s love affair with Rotten Tomatoes has degraded into an all-out war.

This summer was the worst-attended movie season of the past 25 years, with tentpole films such as “The Dark Tower,” “The Mummy” and “King Arthur” tanking at the box office — and with critics. In the eyes of producers, actors and industry insiders, Rotten Tomatoes is at fault. Hollywood claims the site distills a mountain of reviews into a single metric that encourages audiences to judge a film on face value.

Suddenly, the freshness rating of a film became more important than audience interest in terms of success — even though data scientists have found that the score doesn’t affect the box office. Esteemed Hollywood bigwigs such as Martin Scorsese entered the fray, with the Academy Award-winning director penning a scathing piece for The Hollywood Reporter on the shortcomings of review aggregators.

But the entertainment industry is playing a losing game by shooting the messenger instead of working to create an all-around better product. Hollywood has a few things to learn from its critics, but entrepreneurs can likewise use negative feedback to improve their offerings, refine production processes and strengthen customer experiences.

The weight of reviews

People love reviews. At least 91 percent of consumers read reviews before they make a purchase, according to the annual BrightLocal consumer review survey, and it’s not because they can’t be bothered to make their own decisions.

The growing demand for reviews is a direct reaction to the staggering number of movies that hit theaters. Your grandfather might have been content to simply head to the local drive-in and see whatever was playing, but moviegoers today have to pick and choose which films they’ll see. Plus, consumers also grapple with DVDs and streaming options from the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and HBO.

The entire situation ties back to Hick’s law. Psychologists William Hick and Ray Hyman found that as choices snowball, the time necessary to make a decision increases. Some people would blame a similar phenomenon known as “the paradox of choice,” which contends that too many options can make people feel less satisfied.

Without some way to simplify the selection process, consumers would be paralyzed by the seemingly limitless options available. Like it or not, audiences must rely on sites such as Rotten Tomatoes to help them separate what they should see from what they can safely ignore.

Efforts to squash review aggregators come from the same playbook that retailers used a few years ago when trying to eliminate “showrooming,” the practice of using a smartphone to comparison shop while inside a brick-and-mortar store. In the…