Consumers often read online reviews before seeing a movie at the theater. In 2018, 63% of U.S. adults indicated moderate to heavy reliance on online reviews before seeing a movie.
October 7, 2022
Consumers often read online reviews before seeing a movie at the theater. In 2018, 63% of U.S. adults indicated moderate to heavy reliance on online reviews before seeing a movie.
While research has extensively explored the impact of online reviews on movie sales by focusing on review ratings and volume, scholars have less understanding of how similarities in review content by critics and general users impact consumers.
By analyzing movie reviews from Rotten Tomatoes, a film and TV review website, new research from the University of Notre Dame proposes a “topic consistency” measure to capture the degree of overlap between critic and user review content and finds that it does impact movie sales. If both critics and users discuss the same aspects, it will be more memorable and increase the likelihood people will go see a movie.
“Does Topic Consistency Matter? A Study of Critic and User Reviews in the Movie Industry” is forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing from Shijie Lu, the Howard J. and Geraldine F. Korth Associate Professor of Marketing at Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.
The study also shows the association is more prominent with movies that have mediocre review ratings than it is for movies with extreme ratings.
