Thorsten Hennig-Thurau

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Münster

For over four decades, scholars have developed the field of entertainment science, establishing a thorough understanding of the business behind filmed, recorded, written, and programmed media products and services, encompassing consumer behavior and strategic decision-making. Building on six foundational characteristics that jointly define entertai...

Stand-alone virtual-reality (VR) headsets such as Meta’s Quest series enable highly immersive social experiences. As part of a trend toward a trillion dollar “metaverse,” a virtual social environment for which headsets constitute the major access device, these headsets have been predicted to grow the market for VR hardware substantially. Despite hu...

Digital technologies are profoundly changing society, increasingly requiring people to develop skills and knowledge related to the use of such technologies. This paper draws on Bourdieu’s theory of capitals to study the role of digital skills and knowledge, referred to as digital capital, in attaining status in contemporary society. We develop a co...

When governments mandated lockdowns to limit the spread of the coronavirus, the resulting reduction of face-to-face communication threatened many people’s psychological well-being by fostering feelings of loneliness. Given social media’s eponymous social nature, we study the relationship between people’s social media usage and their loneliness duri...

Digitalization can help suppliers cut ties with their intermediaries and offer products directly to consumers. Such a digital disintermediation strategy likely affects both digital and non-digital incumbents in ways difficult to predict by current marketing theory. In our empirical investigation of digital disintermediation in the multibillion-doll...

Real-time multisensory social interactions (RMSIs) between people are at the center of the metaverse, a new computer-mediated environment consisting of virtual “worlds” in which people act and communicate with each other in real-time via avatars. This research investigates whether RMSIs in the metaverse, when accessed through virtual-reality headse...

Real-time multisensory social interactions (RMSIs) between people are at the center of the virtual-reality “metaverse,” a new computer-mediated environment in which people act and communicate with each other in real-time via avatars in virtual “worlds” accessed through virtual-reality devices. This research investigates whether RMSIs in the virtual...

In the digital era, consumers choose among various types of word of mouth (WOM) when searching for product information. This research investigates how consumers allocate their search efforts across three key WOM types: face-to-face (e.g., offline communication among consumers), Internet opinion sites (e.g., product reviews), and social media platfo...

Recent research reveals meaningful uses of digital marketing instruments, though without addressing internal, organizational antecedents of a firm’s social media performance. Drawing on resource-based theory and the concept of dynamic capabilities, this article identifies social media–specific resources and dynamic capabilities that can enhance soc...

When it comes to success for entertainment products, William Goldman famously quipped, “Nobody Knows Anything.” You’ve either got the gift—artistic and managerial intuition—or you don’t. This view has permeated entertainment for years and has suggested that scientific insights is less relevant for managing entertainment than for other industries in...

To be successful, entertainment managers need to have a good understanding of consumer behavior and how consumers make decisions. At the heart of this chapter is the sensations-familiarity framework that argues that the success of an entertainment product always hinges on the delicate balance between offering enough fresh sensations to be intriguin...

How can value be generated with entertainment products? We introduce a value creation framework that identifies the leading institutions in this process that connects producers with consumers. We then overview the major studios, labels, and publishers that have dominated entertainment for decades and key transformational strategies, as well as the...

In this chapter, we investigate how entertainment firms can manage their innovation activities to create new entertainment products on a continuous basis. Finding a way to respectfully balance artistic and economic goals is the foundation for the chapter; our analysis shows that this can only be achieved by creating a culture that combines autonomy...

In this chapter, we study branded signals or “quasi-search” characteristics. We define entertainment brands and distinguish the various kinds of brands that exist in this context. We show the strategic options that branding offers entertainment managers and discuss key branding strategies such as brand extensions, category extensions, and the use o...

In this chapter, we define entertainment and lay out the data that demonstrate why entertainment matters. Not only does entertainment generate huge revenues, but it also has a pioneering influence on culture, in many ways. Entertainment shapes how our views of the world around us, impacts our language, can provide meaning to our human existence, an...

In this chapter on entertainment product decisions, we take a deep dive into just what “quality” means in an entertainment context and the taste-dependency of the concept. We then study what makes an entertainment product a “high quality” one, and how such quality ultimately relates to product success. Because many entertainment products rely on a...

This chapter challenges managers (and scholars) to think critically about pricing practices in entertainment. We review pricing theory and compare it to entertainment practice, stressing the dominance of uniform pricing (one price for all products, regardless of their respective quality) and blaming the “Nobody-Knows-Anything” mantra for it. We the...

In addition to paid and owned communication, “earned” communications channels are essential for success in entertainment. We analyze the role of word of mouth and distinguish between three types of such consumer communication: traditional, social media, and other electronic word of mouth, which are more than substitutes for each other when it comes...

In this chapter, we illustrate that there is value hidden in the way the different elements of the entertainment marketing mix are coordinated. We introduce the blockbuster concept and the niche concept as two integrated entertainment-marketing strategies. The logic of the blockbuster concept is to “pre-sell” new offerings by creating strong pre-re...

Entertainment firms communicate with consumers through some channels in which the firm can tightly control the message, both its content and delivery. “Paid” channels refer to traditional advertising in all of its forms; the firm crafts a message and then pays a channel for delivering that message to consumers. Key questions we address in this chap...

Unique characteristics of entertainment markets also determine the effectiveness of managers’ decisions, commanding adjustments of the basic marketing mix. In this chapter, we take a closer look at the two key sub-markets that exist for any form of entertainment: a market for products targeted to consumers with artistic tastes and one for commercia...

This chapter shows the set of critical characteristics of entertainment products that make them stand out from other types of products. Our overview of these characteristics provides the foundation for developing a marketing mix for entertainment products that takes their uniqueness into account. Their hedonic and cultural nature makes it difficult...

Consumers have to decide whether to spend money or time for an entertainment product without knowing whether it is of high (experience) quality. They have to determine the quality of an experience product in advance using search qualities or “pseudo-search” ones—signals that help consumers to infer whether they will enjoy a product or not. We explo...

With digitalization having dramatically reshaped entertainment distribution, this chapter sheds light on three fundamental distribution-related issues that entertainment managers are dealing with today. Regarding the timing of a new product’s initial release, we show that descriptive statistics on the commercial potential of certain release periods...

The entertainment industry has long been dominated by legendary screenwriter William Goldman’s “Nobody-Knows-Anything” mantra, which argues that success is the result of managerial intuition and instinct. This book builds the case that combining such intuition with data analytics and rigorous scholarly knowledge provides a source of sustainable com...

Social media firestorms imply the sudden occurrence of many, predominantly negative social media expressions against a brand. Do such firestorms leave a mark on consumers and their brand judgments—in the short term but also over time—to a degree that deserves managerial attention? What kind of firestorms have the strongest destructive potential? Th...

Managers frequently seek strategies to profit systematically from social media to increase product sales. By forming a brand alliance, they can acquire an installed social media base from a partner brand in an attempt to boost the sales of their composite products. Drawing from power theory, this article develops a conceptual model of the influence...

“Buzz” during the period leading up to commercial release is commonly cited as a critical success factor for new products. But what exactly is buzz? Based on an extensive literature review and findings from a theories-in-use study (consumer depth interviews and focus groups), the authors argue that pre-release consumer buzz (PRCB) is not just a cat...

The expansion of the Internet and social media have triggered a differentiation of the word-of-mouth (WOM) concept, with consumer communication about brands and products now taking place in various settings and forms. Two important digital WOM types are microblogs and consumer reviews. To clarify their differential roles for product success, this s...

Service companies invest billions of dollars to develop and maintain long-term customer relationships by offering corporate gifts. Yet several questions remain regarding such relationship marketing instruments: What impact do different kinds of gifts have on customers? Which perceptions allow gifts to affect customer behavior? What financial outcom...

Digital technologies reshape customer behavior. Currently, many customers are shifting their searches about new products, their communication about it, and consequently their buying actions to online channels. Therefore, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers face a massive wave of new online competitors to whom they are continuously losing custome...

Research on motion picture success has considered a multitude of different factors that influence the success of a movie. Nevertheless, one of the most prominent characteristics of a movie has been widely ignored: its title. As movie titles, which are considered equivalent to brand names, can give consumers an idea of how a movie will look or feel...

The advent of new forms of data, modern technology, and advanced data analytics offer service providers both opportunities and risks. This article builds on the phenomenon of big data and offers an integrative conceptual framework that captures not only the benefits but also the costs of big data for managing the frontline employee (FLE)-customer i...

Movie industry experts continuously debate whether the industry's enormous investments in stars pay off. Although a rich body of research has addressed the question whether stars are critical to the success of movies, previous research does not provide a consistent picture of the impact of stars on the economic success of the respective product. To...

Contradicting anecdotes can be found on the question of whether or not having millions of followers on Twitter and Facebook offers a competitive advantage when it comes to selling products. Also, regarding academic research on this matter, we find that little is known about the incremental effect of social media activities. This is especially notew...

Hedonic media industries face uncertainties when assessing the business potential of adding a third dimension (3D) to their products. As producing entertainment content in 3D format may require a multimillion-dollar investment, it is unclear whether such an investment is economically viable. Using the theoretical concept of hedonic consumption, we...

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute to the marketing literature and practice by examining the effect of product placements on the host brand. The declining effectiveness of traditional advertising has prompted increasing interest in strategies for placing products in media programming. Most existing research adopt the perspective of the brands...

Innovations commonly involve changes to iterated market offerings (e.g., new games, car models, film sequels). To better understand consumer iteration responses, the authors develop and test a theoretical framework grounded in (1) prior innovations serving as reference states (comparators) for later innovations and (2) consumer desires for both com...

This article examines the economic effect of the 3D feature on movie success by using secondary data from all movies released in digital 3D between 2004 and 2011, and a 2D control sample. Using propensity score matching, the authors provide evidence for a sample selection bias that leads to an overestimation of the 3D effect if not accounted for. M...

The concept of employee-customer emotional contagion, defined as the flow of emotions from employees to service customers, and its impact on customers’ assessments of their service encounters with employees are examined in this paper. Drawing on interpersonal relationship research, we investigate the influence of service employees’ display of posit...

There is extensive evidence that employee emotional display toward customers (EED) is an important determinant of successful service delivery. Previous research has shown that “service with a smile” increases a customer’s service experience and that emotional display is of avail when it comes to influencing customers and achieving higher performanc...

Service scripts are behavioral and verbal prescriptions used in many organizations as a way of standardizing employees’ behaviors during their interactions with customers. Yet, they have rarely been studied empirically. There are mixed suggestions in the literature about the beneficial vs. detrimental effects of service scripts. Based on social exc...

A substantial number of current Hollywood productions are remakes of earlier motion pictures. This research investigates the economic implications of this strategy. It develops a conceptual framework of brand extension success in the movie industry that builds upon the sensations and familiarity that a movie offers and uses this framework to illust...

This annual report aims at measuring the impact of digitalization on our society by analyzing two broad areas of societal transformation: the digitalization of communication and the digitalization of consumption. Our research is based on a representative German consumer sample of 1,924 participants. For the consumption part of this report we analyz...

This research provides an empirical test of the “Twitter effect,” which postulates that microblogging word of mouth (MWOM) shared through Twitter and similar services affects early product adoption behaviors by immediately disseminating consumers’ post-purchase quality evaluations. This is a potentially crucial factor for the success of experientia...

The valuation of extension rights is critical for entertainment brands such as bestseller books. Building on brand extension research, we argue that accounting for the reciprocal spillover effect (i.e., the influence of an extension product on a parent brand) is important for determining the value of extension rights. We develop a contingency model...

This research distinguishes between employees' customer orientation (ECO) and customer orientation as perceived by customers (COPC) to investigate the contingencies of the relationship between these two constructs. Drawing on emotional contagion theory and using a dyadic field study design, the authors examine whether ECO affects COPC, as well as w...

A key issue for marketers resulting from the dramatic rise of social media is how it can be leveraged to generate value for firms. Whereas the importance of social media for brand management and customer relationship management is widely recognized, it is unclear whether social media can also help companies market and sell products. Extant discussi...

In the past twenty years, the video game industry has established itself as a significant contributor to the global entertainment economy. Compared to more established entertainment industries such as movies and music, limited scholarly research in marketing has addressed the processes that create value for companies and consumers in the context of...

Stars earn massive salaries for participating in movies and other media products. However, the successes of some movies that do not feature major stars have led practitioners and researchers to question the reasonableness of such investments. This research determines star value by interpreting stars as ingredient brands and accounting for (1) the s...

Social media are now an integral part of many consumers' everyday lives. In 2012, 92.6 % of German citizens with Internet access had at least one social network account. The country-wide acceptance and application of social media, together with the increasing distribution of smartphones, indicate a fundamental and ongoing change affecting all eleme...

Over the past decade, research in consumer behavior has debated the role of emotion in consumer decision making intensively but has offered few attempts to integrate emotion-related findings with established theoretical frameworks. This manuscript augments the classical expectancy-value model of attitude with a dimensional model of emotion. An expe...

Because hedonic products consist predominantly of experience attributes, often with many available alternatives, choosing the “right” one is a demanding task for consumers. Decision making becomes even more difficult when a group, instead of an individual consumer, will consume the product, as is regularly the case for hedonic offerings such as mov...

The relationship between the judgments of professional reviewers and the economic success of cultural products, such as motion pictures, has been the topic of controversial debates involving both scholars and industry experts. This study builds on previous research that distinguishes an “influencer effect” of reviews from a “predictor effect.” By e...

Social Media erfordert ein verändertes Verständnis des Marketing, das dem Spiel an einem Flipperautomaten ähnelt – Marketing-„Kugeln“ werden auf chaotische Weise von Social-Media-„Bumpern“ und -„Slingshots“ umgelenkt, beschleunigt oder ausgebremst – zuweilen mit drastischen Konsequenzen. Der Artikel beschreibt dieses Flippermodell, identifiziert da...

Motion pictures remain among the most valuable products for broadcast by television (TV) stations around the globe. As a result, TV broadcast rights generate more revenues than the theater box office for the movie studios that own these assets and are often a crucial element in a film’s financing. A key managerial challenge for studios and for TV b...

Microblogging word of mouth (MWOM) through Twitter and similar services constitutes a new type of word-of-mouth communication that combines the real-time and personal influence of traditional (offline) word of mouth (TWOM) with electronic word of mouth’s (EWOM) ability to reach large audiences. MWOM has the potential to increase the speed of dissem...

Using a multi-method approach, we explore the concept of "media trash" and investigate why consumers with different levels of cultural capital seek the consumption of these particular media offers despite or even because of their questionable quality.

This research extends customer lifecycle models to include a post-termination stage that bridges the dissolution stage of a consumer–brand relationship with a potential recovery stage. Drawing from 43 depth interviews with former customers of a car brand, this study relies on grounded theory and triangulation to explore consumer responses in the po...

Emotional dissonance resulting from an employee's emotional labor is usually considered to lead to negative employee outcomes, such as job dissatisfaction and emotional exhaustion. Drawing on Festinger's (1957) cognitive dissonance theory, we argue that the relationship between service employees' surface acting and job dissatisfaction and emotional...

Although substantial differences between product quality and service quality have spurred service research for the past 30 years, studies of brand extension success drivers in a services context measure the core driver of parent brand quality, using scales developed for fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). This study instead assesses parent brand qua...

Recommender systems are intended to assist consumers by making choices from a large scope of items. While most recommender research focuses on improving the accuracy of recommender algorithms, this paper stresses the role of explanations for recommended items for gaining acceptance and trust. Specifically, we present a method which is capable of pr...

Recent years have witnessed the rise of new media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Google, and Twitter, which enable customers to take a more active role as market players and reach (and be reached by) almost everyone anywhere and anytime. These new media threaten long established business models and corporate strategies, but also provide ample...

VHB-JOURQUAL represents the official journal ranking of the German Academic Association for Business Research. Since its introduction in 2003, the ranking has become the most influential journal evaluation approach in German-speaking countries, impacting several key managerial decisions of German, Austrian, and Swiss business schools. This article...

The quality of the relationship between customers and service firms has been found to be a major driver of customer loyalty in traditional (i.e., offline) service contexts. The increasing use of electronic services, or e-services, raises questions concerning the extent to which the relationship quality-customer loyalty link holds in an e-service co...

Recent years have witnessed the rise of new media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Google, and Twitter, which enable customers to take a more active role as market players and reach (and be reached by) almost everyone anywhere and anytime. These new media threaten long established business models and corporate strategies, but also provide ample...

Brand extension value is the part of brand value that derives from a brand owner's right to introduce new products related to the brand. The authors draw on a theoretical conceptualization of brand extension success and present an approach to measure the monetary value of brand extension rights in the context of motion pictures (i.e., movie sequel...

In this research, we extend emotional labor theories to the customer domain by developing and testing a theoretical model of the effects of employee emotional labor on customer outcomes. Dyadic survey data from 285 service interactions between employees and customers show that employees' emotional labor strategies of deep and surface acting differe...

Hierarchical loyalty programs award elevated customer status (e.g., "elite membership") to consumers who meet a predefined spending level. However, if a customer subsequently falls short of the required spending level, firms commonly revoke that status. The authors investigate the impact of such customer demotion on loyalty intentions toward the fi...

Hierarchical loyalty programs award elevated customer status (e.g., “elite membership”) to consumers who meet a predefined spending level. However, if a customer subsequently falls short of the required spending level, firms commonly revoke that status. The authors investigate the impact of such customer demotion on loyalty intentions toward the fi...