• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.53-72
• /
• 2009

In the summer of 2008, the movie Dachimawa Lee: Villain, Get on the Express to Hell is waiting for its first release. This movie is based on a short film which was tremendously popular when it was first introduced on the internet in 2000, and the director Ryu Seung Wahn is expecting a mega hit of the movie this summer. Showbox is one of the leading movie distributors in Korea. After a series of blockbuster hits such as Welcome to Dongmakgol, The Host, and The Chaser, Showbox is now in stagnation. Along with sluggish economy in Korea, most of recent movies distributed by them didn't even reach the breakeven. However, expectation on the upcoming movie, Dachimawa Lee, is higher than ever. Marketing department of Showbox has to decide what kind of media channel to choose and which marketing strategy to apply. It needs to make a decision about whether to target the so-called mania group or the general public of much bigger size. In this case study, the distinctiveness of the movie marketing and its process will be discussed. Moreover, the marketing strategies for Dachimawa Lee's success will be examined in the Showbox's point of view.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.14 no.10
• /
• pp.147-152
• /
• 2016

Purpose - High quality films are affected by both the production stage and various variables such as the size of the movie investment and marketing that changes consumers' perceptions. Consumer preferences should be recognized first to ensure that the movie is successful. If a film is produced without pre-investigation and analysis of consumer demand and taste, the probability of success will be low. This study investigates the balance of production costs, marketing costs, and profits using game theory, suggesting an optimization strategy using the simplex method of linear programming. Research design, data, and methodology - Before the release of the movie, initial demand is assumed to be driven largely by marketing costs. In the next phase, demand is assumed to be driven purely by a movie's production cost and quality, which might also further determine consumer demand. Thus, it is essential to determine how to distribute pure production costs and other costs (marketing) in a limited movie production budget. Moreover, it should be taken into account how to optimally distribute under the assumption that the audience and production company's input resources are limited. This research simplifies the assumptions for large-scale and relatively small-scale movie investments and examines how movie distribution participant profits differ when each cost is invested differently. Results - When first movers or market leaders have to choose both quality and marketing, it has been proven that pursuing a strategy choosing only one is more likely than choosing both. In this situation, market leaders should maximize marketing costs under the premise that market leaders will not lag their quality behind the quality of second movers. Additionally, focusing on movie marketing that produces a quick effect while ceding creative activity to increase movie quality is a natural outcome in the movie distribution environment since a cooperative strategy between market competitors is not feasible. Conclusions - Government film development policy should ignore quality competition between movie production companies and focus on preventing marketing competition. If movie production companies focus on movie production quality improvement then a creative competition would ensue.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.13 no.10
• /
• pp.109-114
• /
• 2015

Purpose - The movie market has the characteristics of being a perfectly competitive market as well as a pure monopolistic market at the same time. This is because there are competitors in the industry but prices, although not fixed, have not changed a lot. Price competition may not have spread, but the competition is focused on artistic value, and the degree of box office success is most important. The artistic value is determined in the course of the production process. However, the degree of box office success is dependent upon the marketing manager. The marketing strategy represents the difference in the standard or quality of the movie. Inherently, the marketing manager adopts the entertainment strategy based on the quality of the foundation of the completed movie. At this time, the marketing manager knows the pertinent information (high quality/low quality) regarding the movie. This research study tries to reveal what should be the reasonable movie marketing expense, dependent on the quality of the movie. Research design, data, and methodology - Using a game scenario with different market players, the goal of the research analysis is to find out the following. First, the marketing expense is determined to maximize the profits after film production. Second, after the production costs are already committed, the manufacturer gets to choose the marketing level. At this time, there will be a profit maximization point, considering the competition. The premise of the research is as follows: if it is a good movie of quality, positive word of mouth increasing the audience continuously slows down the speed of the demand curve. If the movie quality is bad, the negative word of mouth decreasing the audience gradually hastens the speed of the demand curve. On the marketing side, when the manufacturer invests heavily in the marketing expense of the movie, consumer expectations increase to drive up the audience numbers. On the other hand, it is difficult to improve the profits excessively. When the manufacturer invests in marketing a little bit, the marketing expense is only relatively committed, therefore a lot of demand cannot be gained. Results - If a fixed market share is in a competitive situation, a low quality manufacturer expends relatively more marketing expense. If the situation assumes two manufacturers spend the same for the cost of production, the high quality manufacturer takes more profit. If the manufacturer expends less marketing budget to save costs, the optimum profit cannot be achieved since the other party (opponent) grabs the initial market share. Conclusions - In conclusion, investment is essential for market share to increase. We must refrain from a zero-sum game and have models where the game participants pursue the creative profits together. In the current film industry, there is the dominating logic of winner and loser but we have to create a film industry environment where the participants can be altogether satisfied and live together.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.13 no.11
• /
• pp.579-586
• /
• 2013

To see what the promotional movie of the same product, Each concept were respectively constructed for Optimized SNS marketing movie. There are two types of movies. One is the teaser of product design in the form of showing 'Feature Movie' and the other is the 'Viral Movie' presenting USP of the product in parody technique, which can be compared with each others. The two movies show on YouTube, then feedback from viewers were analyzed in detail. As a result, data for view and shares of viral movie showed relatively higher than the feature movie. It means that the viral movie is more effective for marketing since its various elements such as fun, story and visuals are sharable. It makes people more interested and immersed in these contents. Thus, viral movies for SNS marking are distributed to reflect the issue of the time, all the concepts are clear to show what the product is for, and most importantly it can trigger the attention of viewers.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.43-55
• /
• 2013

Since movies are experience goods, consumers are easily influenced by other consumers' behavior. For moviegoers, box office rank is the most credible and easily accessible information. Many studies have found that the relationship between a movie's box office rank and its revenue departs from the Pareto distribution, and this phenomenon has been named "increasing returns to information." The primary objective of the current research is to apply the empirical model proposed by De Vany and Walls (1996) to the Korean movie market in order to examine whether the same phenomenon prevails in the Korean movie market. The other purpose of the present study is to provide managers with useful implications about the release timing of a movie by finding different curvatures that depend upon seasonality. The empirical test on the Korean movie market shows similar results as prior studies conducted on the U.S., Hong Kong, and U.K. movie markets. The phenomenon of increasing returns is generated by information transmission among consumers, which makes some movies become blockbusters and others bombs. The proposed model can also be interpreted in such a way that a change in the rank has a nonlinear effect on the movie's performance. If a movie climbs up the chart, it would be rewarded more than its proportion. On the other hand, if a movie falls down in the ranks, its performance would drop rapidly. The research result also indicates that the phenomenon of increasing returns occurs differently depending on when the movies are released. Since the tendency of the increasing returns to information is stronger during the peak seasons, movie marketers should decide upon the release timing of a movie based on its competitiveness. If a movie has substantial potential to incur positive word-of-mouth, it would be more reasonable to release the movie during the peak season to enjoy increasing returns. Otherwise, a movie should be released during the low season to minimize the risk of being dropped from the chart.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.1525-1531
• /
• 2012

This study has been developed to make a marketing tool for word-of-mouth marketing for "Low-Budget Movie". By developing an application program of Low-Budget Movie for 20millions of Smart-Phone user, it can find out the best environment of service, function, etc. Hereby, it could contribute the progress of Korean film industry with this marketing tool of Low-Budget movie. For the research, conjoint analysis has been done through conjoint survey and general survey.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.1-21
• /
• 2019

Online platforms often provide rating information to customers to relieve the uncertainty they encounter when purchasing experience goods. Prior research has focused mostly on the roles of rating volume and the valence of an average rating among the various possibilities. However, less frequently investigated is the effect of rating dispersion, which may be associated with uncertainty regarding how well a product fits a customer's personal preference, on new trials of experience goods. In this study, we examine the effect of rating dispersion on new trials of experience goods and identify the conditions which intensify or reduce the effect. Empirical analyses of movie box office sales data and online rating data reveal three interesting findings. First, movie sales decrease as movie ratings become increasingly dispersed. Second, the negative effect of rating dispersion on movie sales is more pronounced with more rating volume. Third, this negative effect weakens when additional information about a movie is available (i.e., higher average rating, greater star power, and time since its release). We discuss the academic and practical implications of our findings.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.155-168
• /
• 2013

This study describes consumers' movie choices in conjunction with other group members and attempts to reassess the effect of the online word of mouth (WOM) source in a joint decision context. The tendency of many people to go to movies in groups has been mentioned in previous literature but there is no modeling research that studies movie choice from the group decision perspective. We found that ignoring the group movie-going perspective can result in a misunderstanding, especially underestimation of genre preference and the impact of the WOM variables. Most of the studies to measure online WOM effects were done at the aggregate level, and the role of online WOM variables(volume vs valence) is mixed in the literature. We postulate that group-level analysis might offer insight to resolve these mixed understanding of WOM effects in the literature. We implemented the study via a random effect model with group-level heterogeneity. Romance, drama, and action were selected as genre variables; valence and volume were selected as online WOM variables. A choice-based conjoint survey was used for data collection and the models was estimated via Bayesian MCMC method. The empirical results show that (i) both genre and online WOM are important variables when consumers choose movies, especially as group, and (ii) the WOM valence effect are amplified more than the volume effect does as individuals are engaged in group decision. This research contributes to the literature in several ways. First, we investigate movie choice from a group movie-going perspective that is more realistic and consistent with the market behavior. Secondly, the study sheds new light on the WOM effect. At group-level, both valence and volume significantly affect movie choices, which adds to the understanding of the role of online WOM in consumers' movie choice.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.16 no.3
• /
• pp.77-100
• /
• 2014

Many researchers have analyzed the relationship between the financial success patterns of a motion picture and many other factors, such as the production cost, marketing, stars, awards, reviews, genre, and rating. Through these studies, many researchers and investors concluded that big budgets to make a blockbuster movie can serve as an insurance policy to meet their ROI; thus the box office is dominated by blockbuster movies. High-budget blockbuster movies are more likely to receive attention because these movies are more recognizable given their high expenses for production and casting. Therefore, audiences choose blockbusters in an effort to reduce the searching cost and to mitigate the possibility of a regrettable choice. This behavior of consumers, in turn, causes distributors to allocate screens for blockbusters, resulting in "concentration of blockbuster consumption." As such, low-budget films cannot easily become popular due to the lack of distribution. Indeed, low-budget films released on a small number of screens often end up becoming dismal failures. However, there are exceptional examples which are contrary to the general idea in the movie industry that a big budget and showings on a large number of screens can guarantee the success of a movie. Although researchers have attempted to analyze the performances of movies with small budgets, such movies are likely to be regarded as outliers and then be entirely discarded, as they are far from the 'three-sigma' range, especially given that previous research methodologies could not explain the financial success of such unique examples. This study attempts to explain the financial success at the box office of low-budget movies by applying the concept of the tunnel effect in quantum mechanics, as the phenomenon found in the movie industry is similar to a particle's movement in quantum physics. The tunneling effect is a phenomenon by which a particle without enough energy to pass over a potential barrier tunnels through it. Adopting the analogy, this study draws a tunneling probability function and cultural constant to forecast other outliers using the Schrödinger equation. Moreover, the study finds that word-of-mouth creates in the movie industry this phenomenon of finding outliers.

• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.45-61
• /
• 2016

Book adaptation has been considered an effective strategy in filmmaking. This paper examines the relationship between the box office sales and the performance of its original book focusing on category extension, especially investigating reciprocal spillover effect from a movie to the book. With empirical data, two-way causality between performance of the extension brand (i.e., movies) and that of the parent brand (i.e., books) was examined to test the existence of reciprocal spillover effect. In addition, a linear model was used to test the moderating roles of extension characteristics. The results revealed that the higher the movie's box office sales, the higher the original book's sales after movie's release. The authors also found moderation effects such that if the book has high level of brand awareness prior to movie's release, or if there is a movie tie-in version, or when the book is mentioned in movie trailer, or if the movie is released shortly after the book's publication, then the strength of spillover effect is superior. The current empirical investigation is meaningful considering it provides implications to both buyers and sellers of the extension rights, contributing to the literature of reciprocal spillover effects in category extension.