온라인 구전과 영화 매출 간 상호영향에 관한 연구: 한국 영화 산업을 중심으로

Simultaneous Effect between eWOM and Revenues: Korea Movie Industry

기존 영화 산업에서 구전의 크기는 매출에 영향을 주지만 방향성은 영향을 주지 못하는 것으로 연구되었다(Liu 2006). 하지만, 이러한 분석 방법을 국내 영화 데이터에 동일하게 적용시켜 본 결과, 구전의 방향성도 영화의 매출에 영향을 주는 것으로 밝혀졌다. 이는 아시아 지역의 소비자들에게서 나타나는 독립적 자아관점과 북미 지역의 소비자들에게서 나타나는 상호의존적 자아관점의 차이로 인해 나타난 결과로 보인다. 즉, 국내 소비자의 경우는 영화를 선택/관람함에 있어 타인의 평가가 영향력을 주기 때문에 구전의 방향성도 유의한 양(+)의 값을 가진다. 기존의 연구에서는 구전의 크기가 일방적으로 매출에 영향을 미친다는 가정을 통해 영화 산업의 구전효과를 분석했으나, 이는 발생된 매출이 구전의 크기에 미치는 영향을 간과한 것이다. 따라서 매출이 구전에 미치는 효과까지 고려하여 연립방정식(Simultaneous Equation)을 통해 구전의 크기와 매출 간 상호 관계를 추정한 결과, 구전의 방향성은 위의 분석과 동일하게 영화 개봉 후 지속적으로 매출에 양(+)의 영향력을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 하지만, 구전의 크기는 매출의 원인이 되는 것이 아니라, 오히려 매출이 증가하여 구전의 크기가 증가하는 것이라는 결과를 보여주었다. 즉, 개봉 후 1주차에는 소비자들이 영화를 선택할 때 구전의 크기와 방향성이 동시에 고려되지만, 2주차 이후로는 구전의 크기는 매출에 영향을 미치는 변수가 아니라, 매출의 증가에 따른 결과라는 사실이 밝혀졌다.

Motion pictures are so typical experience goods that consumers tend to look for more credible information. Hence, movie audiences consider movie viewers' reviews more important than the information provided by the film distributor. Recently many portal sites allow consumers to post their reviews and opinions so that other people check the number of consumer reviews and scores before going to the theater. There are a few previous researches studying the electronic word of mouth(eWOM) effect in the movie industry. They found that the volume of eWOM influenced the revenue of the movie significantly but the valence of eWOM did not affect it much (Liu 2006). The goal of our research is also to investigate the eWOM effects in general. But our research is different from the previous studies in several aspects. First, we study the eWOM effect in Korean movie industry. In other words, we would like to check whether we can generalize the results of the previous research across countries. The similar econometric models are applied to Korean movie data that include 746,282 consumer reviews on 439 movies. Our results show that both the valence(RATING) and the volume(LNMSG) of the eWOM influence weekly movie revenues. This result is different from the previous research findings that the volume only influences the revenue. We conjectured that the difference of self construal between Asian and American culture may explain this difference (Kitayama 1991). Asians including Koreans have more interdependent self construal than American, so that they are easily affected by other people's thought and suggestion. Hence, the valence of the eWOM affects Koreans' choice of the movie. Second, we find the critical defect of the previous eWOM models and, hence, attempt to correct it. The previous eWOM model assumes that the volume of eWOM (LNMSG) is an independent variable affecting the movie revenue (LNREV). However, the revenue can influence the volume of the eWOM. We think that treating the volume of eWOM as an independent variable a priori is too restrictive. In order to remedy this problem, we employed a simultaneous equation in which the movie revenue and the volume of the eWOM can affect each other. That is, our eWOM model assumes that the revenue (LNREV) and the volume of eWOM (LNMSG) have endogenous relationship where they influence each other. The results from this simultaneous equation model showed that the movie revenue and the eWOM volume interact each other. The movie revenue influences the eWOM volume for the entire 8 weeks. The reverse effect is more complex. Both the volume and the valence of eWOM affect the revenue in the first week, but only the volume affect the revenue for the rest of the weeks. In the first week, consumers may be curious about the movie and look for various kinds of information they can trust, so that they use the both the quantity and quality of consumer reviews. But from the second week, the quality of the eWOM only affects the movie revenue, implying that the review ratings are more important than the number of reviews. Third, our results show that the ratings by professional critics (CRATING) had negative effect to the weekly movie revenue (LNREV). Professional critics often give low ratings to the blockbuster movies that do not have much cinematic quality. Experienced audiences who watch the movie for fun do not trust the professionals' ratings and, hence, tend to go for the low-rated movies by them. In summary, applied to the Korean movie ratings data and employing a simultaneous model, our results are different from the previous eWOM studies: 1) Koreans (or Asians) care about the others' evaluation quality more than quantity, 2) The volume of eWOM is not the cause but the result of the revenue, 3) Professional reviews can give the negative effect to the movie revenue.