Title: Customer engagement, word-of-mouth and box office: the case of movie tweets

Authors: Chong Oh

Addresses: Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan, 48197, USA

Abstract: Scholars have established mixed results concerning the relationships between word-of-mouth (WOM) and movie box office performance. Additionally, the effect of customer engagement in relation to box office performance is rarely examined. Using social media measures from Twitter and movie box office data from boxofficemojo.com the present study found not only that WOM volume does have a direct positive effect on box office outcomes but also that customer engagement or marketer-generated content (MGC) from movie studios plays a role indirectly relating to box office outcomes. The more a movie studio is willing to engage with its followers via social media the more likely it is to have a higher WOM volume. This subsequently increases the likelihood of having a higher opening-weekend box office performance.

Keywords: word-of-mouth; WOM; customer engagement; motion pictures; films; movies; marketer-generated content; MGC; social media; Twitter; box office performance; movie tweets.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISCM.2013.060976

International Journal of Information Systems and Change Management, 2013 Vol.6 No.4, pp.338 - 352

Received: 06 Nov 2013
Accepted: 10 Jan 2014

Published online: 05 Jul 2014 *

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