Media Relations
Press Release:
MEDIA CONTACT: Lisa Freed
561-297-3022, lfreed@fau.edu
FAU Professor Assists in Movie Marketing Research Study
JUPITER, FL (March 16, 2006) – Suman Basuroy, assistant professor of marketing in Florida Atlantic University’s College of Business, along with marketing professor Wagner Kamakura of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and Peter Boatwright, associate professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, conducted a recent study that indicates what movie critics don’t say about a film appears to matter as much as what they do say.
The research examines the meaning of silence by professional film critics. It finds that many film critics, faced with far too many movies to write about, tend to avoid writing reviews of bad films that they’ve seen. At the same time, a few critics, faced with the same overwhelming choice, tend to avoid reviewing good movies that they’ve watched. As a result, moviegoers might infer the likely opinions of their favorite reviewers, even when those critics don’t actually write about a movie. The study will appear in the June 2006 issue of the journal “Quantitative Marketing & Economics .”
The researchers studied what 46 top critics wrote about 466 movies released between December 1997 and March 2001. Using information drawn from Variety magazine, Hollywood’s leading trade publication, the authors sorted the critics’ opinions into three categories -– pro, con and neutral -– and assigned points for each type of rating. In a follow-up study, the researchers are now exploring the relationship between a movie’s critical acclaim and its box office sales. Among other things, they aim to pinpoint the critics who have the biggest impact on ticket sales.
Before joining FAU, Basuroy taught at the school of management at the University at Buffalo, N.Y. and at the school of business at Rutgers University in New Jersey. His key research interests include marketing of the motion pictures industry, nonprofit organizations and retailing.
For more information about the research study, contact Suman Basuroy at 561-799-8223 or sbasuroy@fau.edu .
-FAU-
