The advent of new media, such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook, has offered the movie industry new opportunities to market movies and increase sales. In this study, we investigate the relationship between online media activities and movie sales. In particular, this paper examines how media coverage (online news and social media posts) and consumer engagement (information search and reading) affect the sales of original movies and sequels in the opening week. By applying the panel vector auto-regression (PVAR) method, we found that online news, social media posts, and information reading were positively related to future sales of originals and sequels, while information search was not a significant predictor of movie sales for originals. Media coverage had a stronger and more durable marketing effect on the sales of originals, and consumer engagement had a stronger effect on the sales of sequels. Compared with social media posts, online news had a higher promoting effect on consumer engagement for sequels. Further, online media coverage and consumer engagement also had mutual effects on each other. This study suggests that managers of movie studios and theaters should apply different channel strategies and allocate different resources for originals and sequels.

诸如Google，Twitter和Facebook之类的新媒体的出现为电影业提供了销售电影和增加销量的新机会。在这项研究中，我们调查了在线媒体活动与电影销售之间的关系。特别是，本文研究了媒体报道（在线新闻和社交媒体帖子）和消费者参与度（信息搜索和阅读）如何在开放一周内影响原始电影和续集的销售。通过应用面板向量自动回归（PVAR）方法，我们发现在线新闻，社交媒体帖子和信息阅读与原著和续集的未来销售正相关，而信息搜索并不是原著电影销售的重要预测指标。媒体报道对原件的销售产生了更强大，更持久的营销效果，消费者的参与对续集的销售产生了更大的影响。与社交媒体帖子相比，在线新闻对续集的消费者参与具有更高的促进作用。此外，在线媒体报道和消费者参与也相互影响。这项研究表明，电影制片厂和剧院的管理者应采用不同的渠道策略，并为原著和续集分配不同的资源。