Examining the Dynamics of Consumer Interest and Live Performance Event TicketSales in the Presence of a Critical Industry-Wide Event

Prior research has shown that consumer online search can serve as an indicator of consumers’ general interest. However, it has not yet differentiated between consumers’ category- and product-level interest. This article argues that online search volume for terms submitted to search engines can indicate consumer interest in a general product category or a specific product. A consumer may search for a product category (e.g. “Broadway shows”) to obtain information about several products within the category before making a purchase decision. A consumer may also search for a specific product (e.g. “Shrek the Musical”) to obtain more information about that product. The objective of this article is to investigate the relationship between aggregate volumes of category- vs. product-level search terms and ticket sales of Broadway shows. Methodologically, we employ a fixed-effects regression model and specify weekly sales of each show as a function of its product- and category-level search term volume. We also account for potential effect changes after a critical industry-wide event, the Tony Awards ceremony. Our results show that product-level search is an important driver before and after the Tony Awards, yet category-level search is important only after the Tony Awards. Our findings suggest important implications for marketing communications. Managers can use these results to manage or generate consumer category- and product-level interest more effectively at various points of time.