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Strategic Promotion and Release Decisions for Cultural Goods

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  • P. Belleflamme
  • D. Paolini

Abstract

We study how producers of cultural goods can strategically increase their promotion budgets to secure the most profitable release dates for their goods. In a game-theoretic setting, where two producers choose their budget before simultaneously setting the release date of their good, we prove that two equilibria are possible - releases are either simultaneous (at the demand peak) or staggered (one producer delays). In the latter equilibrium, the first-mover secures its position by investing more in promotion. We test this prediction on a dataset of more than 1500 American movies released in ten countries over 13 years. Our empirical analysis confirms that higher budgets allow movie studios to move release dates closer to demand peaks.

Suggested Citation

  • P. Belleflamme & D. Paolini, 2015. "Strategic Promotion and Release Decisions for Cultural Goods," Working Paper CRENoS 201508, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    • Handle: RePEc:cns:cnscwp:201508
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    11. Ricard Gil & Wesley R. Hartmann, 2009. "Empirical Analysis of Metering Price Discrimination: Evidence from Concession Sales at Movie Theaters," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(6), pages 1046-1062, 11-12.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Gianpiero Meloni & Dimitri Paolini & J. D. Tena, 2018. "American beauty: trade flows and export costs of US movies," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 42(4), pages 701-716, November.
    2. G. Meloni & D. Paolini & M. Pulina, 2015. "The Great Beauty: Public Subsidies in the Italian Movie Industry," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 1(3), pages 445-455, November.
    3. Queyranne, M. & Wolsey, L.A., 2015. "Modeling poset convex subsets," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015049, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    4. Benjamin Engelstätter & Michael R. Ward, 2018. "Strategic timing of entry: evidence from video games," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 42(1), pages 1-22, February.
    5. Wolsey, L.A., 2015. "Uncapacitated Lot-Sizing with Stock Upper Bounds, Stock Fixed Costs, Stock Overloads and Backlogging: A Tight Formulation," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015041, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    6. Dürr, Niklas S. & Engelstätter, Benjamin & Ward, Michael R., 2018. "Strategic microscheduling of movies," ZEW Discussion Papers 17-033, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2018.
    7. Belleflamme, Paul & Vergote, Wouter, 2016. "Monopoly price discrimination and privacy: The hidden cost of hiding," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 141-144.
    8. Luís Cabral & Gabriel Natividad, 2020. "Movie release strategy: Theory and evidence from international distribution," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 276-288, April.
    9. Dalton, John T. & Leung, Tin Cheuk, 2017. "Strategic decision-making in Hollywood release gaps," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 10-21.
    10. Agrell, P & Brea-Solís, H., 2015. "Stationarity of Heterogeneity in Production Technology using Latent Class Modelling," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015047, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    11. Decerf, B., 2015. "A new index combining the absolute and relative aspects of income poverty: Theory and application," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2015050, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Non-price competition; Strategic promotion; Strategic timing; Motion pictures;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets

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