Sangkil Moon, Junhee Kim, Barry L. Bayus and Youjae Yi
The purpose of this paper is to provide insightful advice that can improve the practice of using consumers’ pre-launch awareness and preference (AP) changes to predict the sales…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide insightful advice that can improve the practice of using consumers’ pre-launch awareness and preference (AP) changes to predict the sales of new movies.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper applies a new movie box-office revenue forecasting model based on consumers’ weekly AP measures, to take advantage of the industry’s practice of using weekly survey data containing the AP measures of upcoming new movies. Specifically, a sales forecasting model is developed on the basis of the theory that the combination of the nature of new product preference (positive vs negative) and the timing of new product awareness (early vs recent) influences entertainment product sales.
Findings
This paper shows that early awareness consumers are as important as late awareness consumers in determining new product sales, suggesting that more marketing resources need to be allocated earlier than currently practiced. This paper also shows that when negative preferences dominate positive preferences well ahead of a product’s release, marketing efforts cannot overcome the negative sentiment of the market. Finally, the empirical application illustrates that three consumer segments varying in product expertise and consumption frequency reveal different AP patterns among high-, medium- and low-performance products.
Originality/value
This paper is intended to provide insightful advice that can improve the AP-based approach in entertainment industries. Toward that end, the authors emphasize two major aspects in association with new entertainment product sales: rethinking survey-based AP measures and examining heterogeneous consumer segments’ differential AP patterns.
Details
Keywords
Sangkil Moon, Yoonseo Park and Yong Seog Kim
The aim of this research is to theorize and demonstrate that analyzing consumers’ text product reviews using text mining can enhance the explanatory power of a product sales…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this research is to theorize and demonstrate that analyzing consumers’ text product reviews using text mining can enhance the explanatory power of a product sales model, particularly for hedonic products, which tend to generate emotional and subjective product evaluations. Previous research in this area has been more focused on utilitarian products.
Design/methodology/approach
Our text clustering-based procedure segments text reviews into multiple clusters in association with consumers’ numeric ratings to address consumer heterogeneity in taste preferences and quality valuations and the J-distribution of numeric product ratings. This approach is novel in terms of combining text clustering with numeric product ratings to address consumers’ subjective product evaluations.
Findings
Using the movie industry as our empirical application, we find that our approach of making use of product text reviews can improve the explanatory power and predictive validity of the box-office sales model.
Research limitations/implications
Marketing scholars have actively investigated the impact of consumers’ online product reviews on product sales, primarily focusing on consumers’ numeric product ratings. Recently, studies have also examined user-generated content. Similarly, this study looks into users’ textual product reviews to explain product sales. It remains to be seen how generalizable our empirical results are beyond our movie application.
Practical implications
Whereas numeric ratings can indicate how much viewers liked products, consumers’ reviews can convey why viewers liked or disliked them. Therefore, our review analysis can help marketers understand what factors make new products succeed or fail.
Originality/value
Primarily our approach is suitable to products subjectively evaluated, mostly, hedonic products. In doing so, we consider consumer heterogeneity contained in reviews through our review clusters based on their divergent impacts on sales.
Details
Keywords
Contrary to my expectations, the old adage holds true – “absence makes the heart grow fonder” – even in the context of higher education. If someone would have asked me 15 years…
Abstract
Contrary to my expectations, the old adage holds true – “absence makes the heart grow fonder” – even in the context of higher education. If someone would have asked me 15 years ago if I would miss my time at the copy machine in the Marketing Department or in the library or stressing about comprehensive exams or my dissertation, my answer would have been a resounding “NO!” Now that I realize what a luxury it was to be focused exclusively on learning and research without all of the other obligations of tenured faculty life, I remember my days at MSU fondly. I can almost say I even miss the winters! However, since joining North Carolina State University in 1995, the key word in that last sentence is “almost”.