Online media coverage, consumer engagement and movie sales: A PVAR approach

The advent of new media, such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook, has offered the movie industry new opportunities to market movies and increase sales. In this study, we investigate the relationship between online media activities and movie sales. In particular, this paper examines how media coverage (online news and social media posts) and consumer engagement (information search and reading) affect the sales of original movies and sequels in the opening week. By applying the panel vector auto-regression (PVAR) method, we found that online news, social media posts, and information reading were positively related to future sales of originals and sequels, while information search was not a significant predictor of movie sales for originals. Media coverage had a stronger and more durable marketing effect on the sales of originals, and consumer engagement had a stronger effect on the sales of sequels. Compared with social media posts, online news had a higher promoting effect on consumer engagement for sequels. Further, online media coverage and consumer engagement also had mutual effects on each other. This study suggests that managers of movie studios and theaters should apply different channel strategies and allocate different resources for originals and sequels.

新媒体的出现，如谷歌、推特和脸书，为电影产业提供了营销电影和增加销量的新机遇。在这项研究中，我们探讨了网络媒体活动与电影销量之间的关系。特别是，本文研究了媒体报道（网络新闻和社交媒体帖子）以及消费者参与度（信息搜索和阅读）如何影响原创电影和续集在首映周的销量。通过应用面板向量自回归（PVAR）方法，我们发现网络新闻、社交媒体帖子和信息阅读与原创电影和续集的未来销量呈正相关，而信息搜索并不是原创电影销量的重要预测因素。媒体报道对原创电影的销量具有更强且更持久的营销效果，而消费者参与度对续集的销量影响更大。与社交媒体帖子相比，网络新闻对续集的消费者参与度具有更高的促进作用。此外，网络媒体报道和消费者参与度之间也相互影响。这项研究表明，电影制片厂和影院的管理者应该对原创电影和续集采用不同的渠道策略并分配不同的资源。