Screen Engine/ASI Acquires TicktBox, an Entertainment Marketing and Ticketing Startup

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Screen Engine/ASI, a market research firm that specializes in focus-group testing of movies and TV pilots, has acquired ticktBox, which operates a digital marketing and ticketing platform used by movie distributors, exhibitors, and TV networks.

Terms of the deal, which closed Aug. 9, weren’t disclosed. With ticktBox, SE/ASI will have one of the largest databases of active moviegoers in the industry — comprising info on over 5 million unique consumers in the U.S. and Canada alone, according to Kevin Goetz, founder and CEO of SE/ASI.

“We have a lot more touchpoints we’ll be able to use. It makes the data we have even more valuable,” Goetz said. “We’re moving much more to [being] a big-data company.”

Customers of ticktBox include Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate, AMC Theatres, Regal Cinemas, Amazon Studios and Netflix.

Founded in 2013, ticktBox operates two brands: the business-to-business ticktBox service; and Gofobo, a consumer-facing brand that offers access to advance movie screenings, premieres and other events. TicktBox customers use the platform to create and distribute promotional passes, as well as manage local and national marketing campaigns and analyze user data along multiple psychographic vectors.

TicktBox co-founders Andrew Ly and Ian Bonewitz will continue with the company as co-presidents of ticktBox, operating as a division of SE/ASI. The duo will work closely with chief product and innovation officer Bruce Friend to develop new products.

The combo of ticktBox’s platform with SE/ASI’s proprietary data “will generate state-of-the-art and game-changing new products,” said Goetz.

TicktBox’s 15 employees will remain based in San Diego. L.A.-based Screen Engine/ASI has about 125 full-time and 125 part-time employees, with a corporate office in Century City and testing facility in Valley Village.

Screen Engine/ASI, founded in 2010, is jointly owned by Goetz and private-equity firm the Wicks Group. In 2014, Screen Engine acquired ASI Entertainment to expand into TV research. In addition to focus-group testing, SE/ASI operates a syndicated-data business and has a joint venture with comScore for PostTrak, a real-time theatrical exit polling business.

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