A Case Study of eWOM:The Invisible Hand to create Blockbuster Success

Abstract

This study aims at finding the hierarchical importance of all the factors correlated with eWOM in the purchasing process So the significant variables related to the reputation system and text of movie reviews accompanied by the data of daily box office revenue are collected to examine the explanatory power by SPSS Explanatory power from each of the dimensions on the three-layer reputation hierarchy can testify the importance respectively The top layer of our hierarchy is reputation followed by the sub-layer consisting of expertise and trustworthiness The bottom layer underneath expertise is composed of knowledge embedded in each of the reviews and the competence contributed from each of the reviewer Variables that belong to knowledge are mostly the text features and timeliness Textual features are to represent the appropriate amount of knowledge in reviews The reason why we place “timeliness” here is reviews from the public should be provided at least within the life cycle of movie Additionally to express competence we implement the RFM model that is used to measure the influence of the reviewer With regard to trustworthiness whose attributes are consistent and reliable according to the Oxford English Dictionary thus the sub-layer of trustworthiness is composed of quality of content and writing style whose factor attributes are deemed in accord with trustworthiness The variables underneath quality of content are to some extent considered as the personality cue that are extracted from the perspectives of linguistics As for writing style we adopt the factors derived from LIWC factors and 4 crucial indicators of emotions Observing the statistics output by implementing SPSS the empirical results of the hierarchical regression are quite intuitive Coinciding with the online user behavior patterns timely reviews of sufficient information and high rating elevate the box office revenue especially in the opening week in theaters In the subsequent weeks the reviews in the brief and easy expression can promote the box office Paradoxically consumers prefer diverse opinions in the comparatively objective expression while the rating are on the high side Our decipherment of the statistics conform to the principle to manipulate the viral marketing that is to create the uninterrupted buzz online no matter it is positive or negative Our study exhibits the importance to create the heat of online discussion and signals the marketers what is required to pay close attention

Date of Award	2014 Jan 22
Original language	English
Supervisor	Sheng-Tun Li (Supervisor)