Film or film brand? Investigating consumers’ engagement with films as brands

Abstract

This study offers an in-depth account of how, when and why consumers engage with films as brands, using 38 exploratory, semi-structured consumer interviews and 1030 consumer survey responses. Extant film branding literature is scarce, dominated by filmmakers’ and marketers’ perspectives of films as brands and is confined to exploring points of parity associations films have as brands, rather than ways films may differentiate themselves as brands. Taking on a consumer centric view, our findings show although filmmakers, production houses and marketers may jointly develop and market films with the vision of becoming brands, this doesn’t necessarily guarantee consumers’ engagement with such films as brands. Instead, consumers initially evaluate the coherency of a film’s identity and subsequently go on to engage with films as brands, a process which is fully mediated by the emotional bonding a consumer may develop for a film and partially mediated by a film’s popularity and sequels. Films’ marketing/franchising efforts, iconic status and sense of timelessness moderate consumer-film brand engagement, resulting in positive word of mouth and purchase intention. Our sequential, consolidated and specified film brand engagement framework guides filmmakers and marketers on how to tactically engage consumers with their films as brands, in order to differentiate themselves within this risky and competitive market.