전문가 리뷰가 인터넷 사용자 리뷰와 박스 오피스(Box Office)에 미치는 영향

The Effect of Professional Criticsʼ Reviews on Online User Reviews and Box Office: US Motion Picture Industry, 2006~2008

소비자는 제품의 실제 가치를 사전에 파악하기 어려우므로 제품의 구매를 위해 시장에서 이미 형성된 제품의 평판을 참조하게 된다. 기존 연구에 따르면 전문 평론가가 대중 매체를 통해 평판의 형성에 상당한 영향을 미치는 것으로 알려져 왔으나, 최근 인터넷의 발달과 함께 온라인 사용자 리뷰의 영향력에 대한 관심이 급증하고 있다. 본 논문은 제품에 대한 품질 정보가 희소하고 불확실한 상황에서 생산자로부터 독립적으로 정보를 제공하는 평론가의 역할에 주목하면서, 공식적 정보 제공자인 전문 평론가 외에 비공식적 정보 제공자로서 온라인 사용자 리뷰가 시장에 미치는 영향을 실증적으로 분석하고자 하였다. 2006년에서 2008년까지 미국에서 개봉된 영화 전체를 대상으로 분석한 결과 전문 평론가와 온라인 사용자 리뷰가 모두 시장 수요에 긍정적인 영향을 미치는 것으로 드러났다. 또한 전문가 리뷰가 온라인 사용자 리뷰에 긍정적인 영향을 미침으로써 통계적으로 온라인 리뷰가 전문 평론가 리뷰와 시장 수요를 부분 매개하는 효과를 가지는 것으로 나타 났다. 또한 블록버스터의 경우 온라인 사용자의 평론 점수가 수요에 긍정적인 효과를 미치는 반면 전문 평론가의 평론 점수는 부정적인 효과를 미치는 것으로 나타나, 영화의 종류나 특성에 따라 평론가의 효과가 다르게 나타난다는 기존 연구를 지지하고 있다. 이는 제품에 대한 불확실성이 높을수록 기업은 시장에서 전문 평론가 및 온라인 사용자들이 제공하는 정보에 주의를 기울여야 하며, 이러한 효과는 제품의 특성에 따라 다르게 나타날 수 있다는 것을 의미한다.

It is difficult for potential consumers to know the real quality of products before they experience them, especially with so-called experience goods. Therefore, to gauge the quality of experience goods, consumers refer to the reputation of the products in the market. Prior studies suggest that reviews by professional critics published in the mass media have a substantial effect on a good’s reputation in the market. Recently, however, online user reviews have received considerable attention as another means that may influence the reputation of a product. In this paper, we focus on the role of professional critics and their effect on online users and ultimately box office. We argue that in situations of high uncertainty and incomplete information, reviews by public online users provide valuable information regarding the quality of the products. Additionally, we tested the effect of mediation of online user reviews between professional critics’ reviews and box office on a sample of U.S. box office movies from 2006 to 2008. The empirical results support our hypotheses that the reviews of professional critics have positive effects on both online users and box. In addition, the empirical results suggest that the reviews of online users partially mediate the relationship between the professional critics' reviews and box office. The results of this paper suggest several implications for academics and practitioners. First, the finding that in addition to professional critics’ reviews, non-professional online user reviews influence box office implies the potential role of online users as information providers and controllers. Zuckerman (1993) suggested that professional critics act as information controllers and providers. Our study advances Zuckerman’s (1993) study by suggesting and providing empirical evidence regarding online users’ potential role as information controllers and information providers. Second, in order for managers to make good decisions in light of incomplete and uncertain information, our study suggests that it would be useful if managers examined not only professional critics’ reviews but also online user reviews because the latter can have significant ramifications on consumer’s perception of experience goods. Furthermore, the results of this study imply that it is necessary for producers to give careful attention to the reviews of critics where the uncertainty of products is high, and the opinions of professional critics are more important than generally expected if they intend to introduce a new product to the market. Despite such academic contributions and practical implications, this study has several limitations. First, this study examined opening movies in the U.S. for the years 2006 to 2008. However, we eliminated from our sample those movies for which we could not obtain complete information. Accordingly, care must be taken in interpreting our results. Second, we measured star power by examining the Academy award winners and nominees for the prior three years in our study. Although this measure has been frequently suggested as a good indicator of star power, we do realize that star power and box office success are not the same. This might be one reason that we did not find any significant results for our measure of star power. We suggest more refined measures of star power in future research. Finally, we used the number of reviews to measure the influence of online users and professional critics, controlling the score of their reviews. Future scholars need to incorporate multiple measures in their research. These limitations notwithstanding, our study provides valuable empirical evidence regarding the role of online user reviews with regard to the relationship between professional critics and box office. We believe that examining these relationships is a good start in explaining box office and revenue of innovative goods in the market.