Do Sales of an Extended Brand Affect Popularity of its Original?: Empirical Evidence from Motion Pictures and their Original Books

Abstract

Book adaptation has been considered an effective strategy in filmmaking. This paper examines the relationship between the box office sales and the performance of its original book focusing on category extension, especially investigating reciprocal spillover effect from a movie to the book. With empirical data, two-way causality between performance of the extension brand (i.e., movies) and that of the parent brand (i.e., books) was examined to test the existence of reciprocal spillover effect. In addition, a linear model was used to test the moderating roles of extension characteristics. The results revealed that the higher the movie’s box office sales, the higher the original book’s sales after movie’s release. The authors also found moderation effects such that if the book has high level of brand awareness prior to movie’s release, or if there is a movie tie-in version, or when the book is mentioned in movie trailer, or if the movie is released shortly after the book’s publication, then the strength of spillover effect is superior. The current empirical investigation is meaningful considering it provides implications to both buyers and sellers of the extension rights, contributing to the literature of reciprocal spillover effects in category extension.