Lukasz Jeziorski of PlumResearch Has a Secret: He Knows Who is Watching What

Tell us about yourself and how PlumResearch got started.  

Lukasz Jeziorski: I’m the founder and CEO of PlumResearch. I’ve been working in the startup and tech industries for over 10 years, developing software tools, apps, and products that respond to the entertainment industry’s needs. 

PlumResearch was founded in 2015 to focus on audience analytics, providing granular data that wasn’t available anywhere on the market. We wanted to make complex analytics easy to access and digestible for our clients because they rely on our data to make high-stake business decisions. 

We know PlumResearch analyzes streaming video and linear television data, among other services. Who are your clients?

Lukasz Jeziorski: We provide data to a number of clients around the world, including major film studios, television networks and broadcasters, and talent agencies. They use our data to better understand their audience behavior, drive sales, and develop or market current and future programming. 

What are some metrics that you track, and why are they useful? 

Lukasz Jeziorski: We analyze a number of different data points when it comes to streaming and linear content. For example, when it comes to SVOD data, Plum captures the full picture of what people are watching, when, on what device, and for how long – with both movies and series on the service, whether for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ or others. We provide rankings of the month’s top 100 series or movies, demographics on viewership, and even at what point viewers “got hooked” on a show.  

This information is useful because it provides our clients with a unique perspective into consumption trends in the market, and our clients can zoom into regional or local data or zoom out to get the global picture.

Did you see an uptick in viewership during the pandemic? If so, how did that affect your company? 

Lukasz Jeziorski: Yes. We noticed more new accounts signed up to video streaming services; the jump was pretty significant, and it happened basically in every single country. We also noticed that along with an increase in sign-ups, viewers spent significantly more time on the platforms. We also had time to work on new products, including dashboards for Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, which will debut this month! 

What types of trends are you seeing in the market now?

Lukasz Jeziorski: There are so many more streaming platforms out there than when we launched five years ago. We’re really seeing that people actually stick to a couple (2–3 in the US) and are really loyal to those platforms; it’s entertainment a la carte.

We also see viewers connect, content-wise, to a broad spectrum of shows and movies, from hyper-local to international. For example, people don’t only want to watch scripted content and movies – they want to watch reality shows or something a bit more niche as well. We have all that data. 

Your company is among one of the only in the business to provide such granular analytics for SVOD. Can you let us in on your methodology and how you gather your data? 

Lukasz Jeziorski: Sure. Basically, we monitor over 80 percent of the global SVOD market. We recruit panelists, or viewers, from all over the world who consent to provide us with their viewing behavior on, let’s say, Netflix or Disney+. After we acquire that data, we clean and weight it, and then add rich metadata to offer in-depth analyses of the viewership through our dashboards.

Who do you consider competitors, and in what ways is PlumResearch different?

Lukasz Jeziorski: In a way, Nielsen would be considered a competitor of ours; however, we do have a fundamentally different approach. Our data sources are different; we have more title rankings and deeper audience insight. We also provide a more global perspective by giving our clients access to data for key international markets, such as Brazil, Mexico, the UK, Germany, Australia, India, and Poland, in addition to focusing on the US like Nielsen. 

What’s your advantage as a startup when facing off against bigger, more entrenched players on the market?

Lukasz Jeziorski: Our clients work hand-in-hand with us to continuously develop our platform and product offerings. In turn, we’re very flexible when it comes to listening to their needs and responding. If they need us to track a certain metric, we can do it. If they need us to perform custom data pulls, our analytics team is on it. When you reach out to us, you are talking directly to a team member, not a salesperson or a bot.

What have you learned about the entertainment industry along the way, and what direction are you headed in next?

Lukasz Jeziorski: I learned that you have to let go of expectations and just roll with the punches. Sometimes you’ll develop a product, and it’s ready to go and launch, and the market has changed, so you need to adapt, learn and grow, and that’s what we’re doing right now; we’re fortunate in that aspect. We also make sure our products and tools are able to adjust to market trends and have that sort of safety net built into them. Our audience really defines our products–what we build is in response to their needs. Next, we’re rolling out with an innovative hardware solution, so be on the lookout for that! 

Your final thoughts?

Lukasz Jeziorski: The media and entertainment analytics world is huge, and many parts of it are still vastly under-explored. We really hope to bridge that gap for all streaming platforms and linear networks and provide every single data point possible. That’s always been our motto from day one: reform and educate the industry through accurate and reliable data and lead the charge. 

Your website?

https://plumresearch.com/