Goodwill and System Dynamics Modeling for Film Investment Decision by Interactive Efforts

Academic research pertaining to the marketing of film industry has identified advertising, film-making, and star power as the important factors influencing a movie’s market performance. Prior research, however, has not investigated the joint influences of these factors. The current study has extended previous research by analyzing the investment decision of studios or investors. In order to analyze the optimal film investment decision in advertising, film-making, and stars power, this paper develops a goodwill model and system dynamic (SD) model, which allow us to disentangle the effects of advertising, film-making, and star power on film market performance. The results show that the film producer should increasingly lay emphasis on investing in advertising to absorb moviegoers’ attention. Then the film producer should focus on investing in film-making when film quality has a great impact on the movie's reputation and audience's viewing decision. Furthermore, the film producer should pay more attention to the higher cost-performance stars who have more reasonable remuneration, better acting skills, and bigger box-office guarantee. Moreover, the numerical analysis reveals that rational audience contribute more than fans to a movie's box-office and bankable stars contribute more than high-profile stars to a movie's returns. Through SD simulation analysis, the film series yields higher profits than new theme movies although the cost of investment is the same.