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Product Success in Cultural Markets: The Mediating Role of Familiarity, Peers, and Experts

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  • Keuschnigg, Marc

Abstract

The mediation of ambiguous markets has been essential to recent developments in economic sociology. Cultural industries provide a valuable testing ground for its perspective of socially influenced market behavior. This article emphasizes the uncertainty of cultural markets and thus the relevance of social valuation in disseminating new releases. I hypothesize that recipients of culture simplify cultural choice by reacting to easily attainable signals of product value. Mechanisms of valuation include product familiarity, peer influence, and expert critique. Focusing on an exemplary cultural market, I confront theoretical implications with data from the German book industry (2001–2006). Panel and cross-section regressions show that, alongside well-defined market segments, separate mechanisms guide consumer behavior. For incumbents’ offerings, prior recognition stabilizes cultural choice and reinforces differences in market success. In the highly ambiguous newcomer segment, imitation and negative media steer audience attention, at times leading to unsatisfactory aggregate outcomes, i.e. ‘bad’ bestsellers.

Suggested Citation

  • Keuschnigg, Marc, 2015. "Product Success in Cultural Markets: The Mediating Role of Familiarity, Peers, and Experts," MPRA Paper 63444, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:63444
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Paola Zanella & Paola Cillo & Gianmario Verona, 2022. "Whatever you want, whatever you like: How incumbents respond to changes in market information regimes," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(7), pages 1258-1286, July.
    2. Pablo Bello & David Garcia, 2021. "Cultural Divergence in popular music: the increasing diversity of music consumption on Spotify across countries," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-8, December.
    3. Przepiorka, Wojtek, 2022. "Testing sociological theories with digital trace data from online markets," SocArXiv ed2xc, Center for Open Science.
    4. Cédric Ceulemans & Victor Ginsburgh & Juan Prieto-Rodríguez & Sheila Weyers, 2018. "One Hundred Years of Solitude Bestsellers in the United States, 1900-1999," Working Papers ECARES 2018-26, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bestsellers; book market; cultural choice; cultural markets; diffusion; fixed effects individual slopes regression; market mediation; imitation; quantitative content analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature

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