Join the Department of Management on April 6 for their Brown Bag Seminar featuring professor Vinay Kanetkar.

"Sequels as Means of Brand Expansion: Market size and Product life-cycle"

Theatrical presentations of movies as a brand have short life, about 10 weeks. In the last 40 years, institutional changes, particularly ownerships of studios by investors and multiplex theatres housing several screens at one location has changed lives of movies or brands. In this paper, an alternative model is proposed to account for total audience (brand expansion) and half-life of movie (brand extension). Movie sequels allow studios to produce revenue steam at less risk than original movie. The literature about sequels suggests that original movies generate lower revenue compared to sequels. Statistical models estimated using daily box-office revenue data for 32 sequels accounting for 126 movies suggest that, on an average, sequels have potential lower market size and shorter half lives compared to the original. This research contributes to markets where product life cycles are short and there are multiple competing brands.