Even on his worst day, if he even has one, Matthew Liebmann is incredibly even keeled and upbeat. These days, after spending the past year getting adjusted to his new role as Chief Product, Innovation & Marketing Officer at Vista Group, he might be described as downright euphoric. “I have a busier to do list and more fun every day,” Liebmann said during a recent interview from the company’s headquarters in Auckland, New Zealand. “I think we’re doing something pretty meaningful with Vista in a greater way than we have in prior years.”

In those prior years that Liebmann is referring to, Vista comprised eight different companies providing technology and marketing solutions for motion picture exhibitors and distributors all over the world. During the past year the company has reorganized into Vista Group, bringing its separate companies into a one cohesive business. That includes the company’s flagship cinema management software, Vista Cinema, its distribution system, Maccs, marketing platforms like Movio and box office reporting tools such as Numero.

As part of this process Liebmann transitioned from a senior executive position at Movio to his current role at Vista Group. And that’s why he is so excited. “Now that I get to oversee product development for the group I get to play with all the best Lego pieces in the business,” he beamed. “I get to grab things from Numero and give them to loyalty users in Movio EQ. I get to look at member insights and put it towards the operational side of a clients’ business. Nothing’s a little widget in isolation anymore.”

A Roadmap For a Unified Future
One of Liebmann’s first tasks after all the disparate businesses were combined, was to draft a product development roadmap that took the entire suite of Vista Group’s offerings into account. This is standard operating procedure for most technology firms, including Vista, however in an unusual step, Liebmann helped convince the company to go a step further by making their roadmap public. “It’s a little scary to publish a roadmap, but if we’re going to be the company we’re striving to be, it felt like a logical thing to do,” he explained.

For Vista, which like many tech companies, has historically been very tight lipped about future developments, the company is being more transparent than ever before in an effort to be accountable to its customers. Liebmann reports that clients have been overwhelmingly positive about Vista’s roadmap, especially when they see some of the detailed new features get completed. “It’s speed, not direction,” laughed Liebmann in relaying how Vista’s customers want to see the company complete the items on the roadmap faster. “I hear them loud and clear. I’m motivated by going as fast as we can as well.”

Reassuring Cloud-Curious Customers
One of the new offerings the company announced in August of 2021 is Vista Cloud, a scalable cloud-hosted version of its market-leading cinema software. However, in an industry that, at best, is averse to change and, at worst, never does, giving up on-premises software and its associated hardware for a managed cloud solution is a tough sell. According to Liebmann, though the company is committed to supporting its on premises software, developing Vista’s cloud solution is the top priority the company is focusing on, mainly because it has ripple effects to other parts of its product suite. Especially in regards to allowing individual clients to commence their cloud journey on their terms and timing.

Realizing the industry pushback they were up against, Vista used its customer conference, which took place in Auckland this past February, to clarify some of the messaging around its cloud product. “We need to prove it to an industry that knows what they’re doing to move into areas of uncertainty, even if we’re confident that it’s better for them,” said Liebmann. “We pointed out to our customers that Vista Cloud is all the things they know about on-premises solutions, but better. We use the term ‘reassuringly familiar, yet radically superior.’ Vista Cloud has a lot of the same product names, a lot of the same functionality, but faster, simpler, smarter.”

Three years into the rollout of Vista Cloud, Liebmann confessed that adoption is just starting to pick up. “I think we were a little too enthusiastic,” he said of how the company first launched. Initially, Vista suggested interested customers should transition entirely to their cloud-based solution and completely abandon on-premises software. “Now we have really clarified that our clients choose their own pace and route to the cloud. We broke down our journey-to-cloud pathway into four capabilities. Each capability oriented to what an exhibitor wants to achieve. Our exhibitors are more in control, and they don’t have to make that one great leap to the finish line of the cloud journey. This has meant we’ve seen clients come on in greater numbers to choose their own adventure to the end result of cloud.”

Another obstacle Vista has in convincing new and existing customers to adopt Vista Cloud is the universal belief that cloud-based solutions are exceedingly more expensive than on-premises software. Liebmann said the pricing isn’t actually as scary as the rumors going around. He suggested exhibitors look at total cost of ownership when evaluating whether to stick with on-premises or switch to a cloud-based offering. This should include the security and dependability of any software system.

“This is what we call core confidence,” said Liebmann. “It’s not a product. It’s what we deliver in terms of security, uptime and reliability and it goes far beyond protecting from penetration attacks and bad players. There’s also what happens when tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour movie goes on sale. Will your hardware and software stand up to the demand so that moviegoers can complete a purchase? That’s why we’re confident that Vista Cloud provides equal value for the money.”

Of course, another advantage of their cloud solution is that Vista can give customers its latest and greatest innovations the moment they are completed, instead of waiting for major software releases which can tax an exhibitor’s tech teams.

Vista’s AI: Eight Years in the Making
The innovation that Liebmann may be most enthusiastic about is one Vista has been working on for the past eight years; artificial intelligence (AI). Movio, for instance, began using AI models back in 2016 to help exhibitors market film releases to moviegoers. Over the past year, the Vista development team is stretching AI across its entire product suite.

Some of the AI updates Vista has been working on recently involve moviegoer personalization and assisted film scheduling. “I’m an ex-film buyer, and I know that there is a lot of experience and maybe a little bit of magic in every film buyer that they shouldn’t give solely to the AI,” Liebmann said. “But instead of coming in on a Monday with a blank sheet of paper, we’re suggesting the schedule, taking into account business and policy, and the film buyers can tweak it. What we’re hearing is they don’t have to tweak it that much.”

Another upcoming Movio EQ feature that incorporates AI is one called First Draft. As its name suggests, First Draft writes the initial pass on marketing copy for a movie. What’s more, it does so in the voice and tone of the exhibitor using it. This means the marketing copy for Alamo Drafthouse in the United States will be customized from copy generated by First Draft for the same film for Village in Australia. “That then means the first pass at image and text are done,” Liebmann continued. “It means you can get to a genuine one-to-one level of communication to each moviegoer without having to grow the size of your marketing team.”

Maybe one of the more interesting uses of AI in a Vista product can be found in Oneview. A mobile and desktop app, Oneview gives exhibition executives the pulse of their business through real-time transactional, behavioral and market-related data reports right down to the individual auditorium and showtime level. Included in Oneview is a daily AI generated podcast feature that provides executives with customized financial and operational highlights for their circuit from the previous day.

“It’s going to be a case not that far into the future where people won’t ask if software has AI or not,” shrugged Liebmann. “For Vista, AI will just be an ingredient, but we will hold ourselves accountable to ask whether it’s for gimmick purposes or for business oriented purposes. Can the AI demonstrate that it achieves outcomes? Does it allow our exhibitor clients and our studio clients to achieve more without having to add more resources? Does it allow them to do things that they haven’t got a capability to do themselves, and ultimately, does it give great experiences to moviegoers?”

What really thrills Liebmann about the new organizational structure at Vista Group is that while things operated somewhat in a silo within each group company in the past, he now has the ability to grab features, functionality and data from each, and repurpose them for different customers who can then use them to improve their future business. “We’re not cocky, but we’re quietly confident,” he said. “We have more ingredients to help the industry with that than just about anyone. And we’re on it. We’re on the case.”