Anita Elberse
Anita Elberse
Anita Elberse is a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. She is a leading expert on the entertainment, media and sports sectors. She has published her research in top academic and practitioner journals in the fields of marketing, economics, and management. According to the Wall Street Journal, " takes the same statistically rigorous approach to entertainment and cultural industries that sabermetricians do to baseball."...
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I spend way too much time watching television, going to sports games, going to movies. It struck me that there's an awful lot of data in the public domain for these sectors. The movie industry publishes weekly sales numbers - not many industries do.
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Think about trailers you see in theaters. If you're seeing a Warner Bros film, the studio might have three of the five trailers. So having a hit helps you create the next hit.
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Most large media firms make outsized investments to acquire and market a small number of titles with strong hit potential, and bank on their sales to make up for middling performance in the rest of their catalogs.
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Most of my colleagues have research awards on the shelf. I have party invites.
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What you get when you put all your resources behind a product, is you get everyone to join in.
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If anything, the impact of digital technology is creating bigger brands and bigger superstars.
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Media companies' hit-focused marketing did not emerge in a vacuum. It reflects how consumers make choices. The truth is that consumers prefer blockbusters.
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One problem with relying on existing concepts is that it could stifle innovation, weakening the film sector over time.
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No one disputes that online businesses offer much more variety than their analog counterparts.
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Because they are inherently social, people find value in reading the same books and watching the same movies that others do.
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With so much money invested in their most promising projects, Hollywood executives will understandably do everything in their power to make their products a success in the marketplace. Therefore, the most expensive films often also get the highest marketing budgets, and are slotted into the most favorable opening weekends.
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The average movie-goer in this country sees six films in a year. That's one every two months. What the studios are trying to do is make sure it's their movie.
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When a publisher spends an inordinate amount on an acquisition, it will do everything in its power to make that project a market success.
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Anyone can see that, say, superheroes and vampires perform well at the box office. That in turn can trigger competitive bidding situations and soaring fees for people who can bring these properties to the screen. The result can be a dramatic increase in the costs of production.