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Star power in the eye of the beholder: A study of the influence of stars in the movie industry

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  • Angela Liu
  • Yong Liu
  • Tridib Mazumdar

Abstract

Organizations employ various risk-mitigation strategies to cope with the uncertainty in marketing new products. In the motion picture industry, an important strategy is to cast star actors and actresses in movies. The ultimate box-office success, however, depends on multiple stakeholders involved with financing, making, distributing, and watching the movie. In pursuing different goals and interests, the stakeholders may look for different aspects of star power to mitigate their own risk. This paper examines how the influence of stars varies across key stakeholders in the movie market. The results show that, in general, stars have a greater impact on the stakeholders involved in the earlier stages of movie development and exhibition (where the risks are greater) than on those in later stages. Movie project financiers and exhibitors are strongly and directly influenced by star power, but news media and movie audiences are influenced less and only indirectly. Situated at the early stage of the movie “value chain,” the financiers are most concerned with stars’ past box-office performance. Exhibitors, however, are influenced by the “match” between a star’s genre participation history and the genre of a specific movie. By contrast, news media and movie audiences are influenced indirectly through the stars’ impact on earlier stakeholders and their decisions. The findings shed light on the value of employing star elements in new products, the marketing of stars, and movie promotion strategies. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

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  • Angela Liu & Yong Liu & Tridib Mazumdar, 2014. "Star power in the eye of the beholder: A study of the influence of stars in the movie industry," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 385-396, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:mktlet:v:25:y:2014:i:4:p:385-396
    DOI: 10.1007/s11002-013-9258-x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    4. Kang, Lili & Peng, Fei & Anwar, Sajid, 2022. "All that glitters is not gold: Do movie quality and contents influence box-office revenues in China?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 492-510.
    5. François A. Carrillat & Renaud Legoux & Allègre L. Hadida, 2018. "Debates and assumptions about motion picture performance: a meta-analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 273-299, March.
    6. Verdiana Giannetti & Jieke Chen, 2023. "An investigation of the impact of Black male and female actors on US movies’ box-office across countries," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 269-291, June.
    7. Fan, Liu & Zhang, Xiaoping & Rai, Laxmisha, 2021. "When should star power and eWOM be responsible for the box office performance? - An empirical study based on signaling theory," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    8. Moon, Sangkil & Jalali, Nima & Song, Reo, 2022. "Green-lighting scripts in the movie pre-production stage: An application of consumption experience carryover theory," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 332-345.
    9. Jordi McKenzie, 2023. "The economics of movies (revisited): A survey of recent literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 480-525, April.
    10. Hofmann, Julian & Clement, Michel & Völckner, Franziska & Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten, 2017. "Empirical generalizations on the impact of stars on the economic success of movies," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 442-461.
    11. Lili Kang & Fei Peng, 2024. "Star power as quality signal or marketing effect? A path analysis on China's motion‐picture industry," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(3), pages 3639-3655, July.

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