The Problem

People generally evaluate whether to watch a show or movie based on two things: its quality (how good or noteworthy fans and critics consider it to be) and how it relates to their context (does this suit my mood, who I'm with, or my tastes/preferences). One of our key learnings as we built the What to Watch app was that people need reliable terminology to describe what they like and identify what they’re in the mood for. Historically, IMDb only attributed genres (i.e. Drama, Comedy, Horror, etc) to shows and movies. People need more specificity and granularity.

The mobile apps team conducted a research study to learn how the apps could better meet our customers’ needs. We learned our customers would use the apps more often if we: improved the relevancy of our content, added more personalization, and added community features. Younger fans, in particular, shared their desire to connect with others who share their interests in order to discover more of what they love.

Considering how these needs for discovery and connection overlap, I spearheaded the vision for Interests - an experience that not only helps fans discover more of what they love, but others who feel the same way.

The solution

We would first create an ontology of descriptive terms that could be attributed to IMDb’s 10MM+ catalog of shows and movies, each with its own landing page for discovery. Rather than limiting to only genres and subgenres, I recommended a more flexible term “interests” in order to preserve opportunities to grow the program to be inclusive of the many ways fans can connect with entertainment, including franchises, DEI themes, languages, studios, events and much more. For launch, I proposed we begin with 200 genres and subgenres. Interest tags would be showcased in the header of every title page, linking to each interest page - a hub of related content, trailers, and more. We partnered with subject matter experts across the organization to identify our initial set of interests for launch, reviewed them with customers to check blind spots, defined hero images and definitions to help customers better understand each interest, and tagged tens of thousands of the most popular shows and movies with the new keywords. The collaborative effort required the partnership of over 10 teams and 40+ individuals in order to create the new experience.

Launch

In Dec 2023, we launched 195 Interests in the mobile apps, globally. In only two weeks, we observed 1.8MM page views across all Interest pages, with 77K customers adding at least one Interest. Interest pages drove 371K visits to title pages, 57K watchlist adds and 1.9K video views. 8 months later, Interests continued to drive high value actions of: 1.4MM title page visits (+7.7% m/m), 204.9K watchlist adds (+7.3% m/m), 15K registrations (+6.4% m/m), and 4.1K video views (+13.9% m/m). The successful launch then inspired leaders and partner teams to bring the experience to web. In July 2024, Interests launched on web, resulting in 3.4MM interest page views on web, driving an additional 522K title page views and 43.9K watchlist adds.

“I like that I can see movies and shows in a particular genre if I like other things in that genre. I also like that it recommends an interest if you watch a lot of things in that area. I have learned about different interests that I did not know had names!”

“It provides information I was not aware of and validates my interest in the particular genre. It also provides the name of movies I might enjoy.”

“It helps me put a name to things I like and then find more media I might enjoy.”

“When I want to watch a new movie but don’t know if I will like it, I look at what interests it is labeled as and if any of my interests are ticked I usually like the movie.”

It’s only the beginning

Today, Interests provide fans a means to identify and discover the shows and movies they enjoy - but that’s only scratching the surface of what’s to come. With the introduction of followable user profiles, fans will soon be able to discover like-minded fans, filter ratings and reviews by “fans of dark comedy”, share their “top 10 dinosaur adventures,” and much more.

Ratings and reviews filtering

With the intersection of Interest Follower data and existing ratings and reviews on IMDb, we can now provide a more relevant, helpful experience with the ability to filter ratings and reviews by fans of each of the show or movie’s tagged interests. For example, any customer on the Title Page for The Substance (2024) could compare the ratings from all 154K customers who’ve rated the movie (current avg rating 7.4), with the more relevant 2.7K followers of the Body Horror Interest (current avg rating 8.1). We would also enable someone who loves dark comedies to discern how darkly funny the movie really is from like-minded people by allowing them to filter to just the 59 reviews written by followers of the Dark Comedy Interest.