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Building Knowledge about the Consumer: The Emergence of Market Research in the Motion Picture Industry

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  • Gerben Bakker

Abstract

The way film companies obtained knowledge about the consumer resembled that of fashion industries. Initially, intermediaries analysed sales and observed customers while they consumed the service. As the film industry developed between the 1890s and the 1940s, however, its gathering of information increasingly began to resemble the market research of mass-distribution industries. Technological and contractual changes, as well as a rise in sunk costs, affected the way market research was done. By the late 1930s, film companies' increasing need for market information quickly made them adopt the newly available market research techniques. This essay traces this evolution showing how market research techniques were systematised and developed. The surveys by the British Granada Theatres cinema chain stood on the threshold of the era of modern market research, while the work of George Gallup's Audience Research of the US marked its advent.

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  • Gerben Bakker, 2003. "Building Knowledge about the Consumer: The Emergence of Market Research in the Motion Picture Industry," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 101-127.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:bushst:v:45:y:2003:i:1:p:101-127
    DOI: 10.1080/713999299
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    Cited by:

    1. repec:ehl:wpaper:47507 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Gerben Bakker, 2007. "The Evolution of Entertainment Consumption and the Emergence of Cinema, 1890–1940," Advances in Austrian Economics, in: The Evolution of Consumption: Theories and Practices, pages 93-137, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    3. Gerben Bakker, 2005. "The decline and fall of the European film industry: sunk costs, market size, and market structure, 1890–1927," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 58(2), pages 310-351, May.
    4. repec:ehl:wpaper:22348 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:ehl:wpaper:56333 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:ehl:wpaper:22316 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:ehl:wpaper:49081 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Bakker, Gerben, 2014. "Soft power: the media industries in Britain since 1870," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 56333, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Orbach, Barak Y. & Einav, Liran, 2007. "Uniform prices for differentiated goods: The case of the movie-theater industry," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 129-153.
    10. John Sedgwick & Michael Pokorny, 2010. "Consumers as risk takers: Evidence from the film industry during the 1930s," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(1), pages 74-99.
    11. M. Rimscha, 2013. "It’s not the economy, stupid! External effects on the supply and demand of cinema entertainment," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 37(4), pages 433-455, November.
    12. Bakker, Gerben, 2012. "Adopting the rights-based model: music multinationals and local music industries since 1945," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 47507, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. repec:ehl:wpaper:22366 is not listed on IDEAS

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