(The) impact of text data on revenue

Abstract

The impact of text data on product sales has been analyzed extensively. However, most studies have been done with text data generated by third parties, such as critics, consumer reviews, and online word of mouth. This study examines how text data produced by film industry stakeholders affects sales in two essays. In the first essay, the title of the movie was analyzed, and in the second essay, the plot of the movie was analyzed. The first essay examines how an informative movie title, that is, a movie title that contains information about its genre or storyline, affects the movie’s box office revenue. Specifically, this study shows that an informative movie title has a positive impact on the box office revenue for a sparsely promoted movie in an analysis of the Korean movie market over a 5-year period. However, this impact decreases as prerelease promotional activities increase, where the prerelease promotional activities are measured by the volume of prerelease media exposure. This mechanism not only contributes to the understanding of movies, but also to literature on the entertainment industry and brand and firm names. The second essay investigates how themes in Korean film market changed over time and how the different themes affected box office revenue. The analysis was conducted for films released in Korea between 2004 and 2018 by using topic modeling and linear regression analysis. This thesis will enable marketing researchers and practitioners to understand how text data generated by studios affects box office revenue. In addition, the results of this study are expected to be applicable not only to movies but also to various experience goods, such as books and live dramas.