An exploratory analysis on adoption of potential customers in transmedia storytelling:emphasis on Korean TV drama and movie

There is an increasing interest in contents such as movie, drama and game using transmedia storytelling. It includes Le Grand Chef, The War of Flower, Dae Jang Geum, The Matrix, Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. However, transmedia contents have not always been successful. To study the factors affecting possible outcomes of transmedia storytelling, we analyzed the intention on transmedia of potential consumers who have not been exposed to transmedia contents before. To this end, we investigated two different cases : first, potential customer intention to watch dramas which will be produced after launching comic-based movies; second, potential customer intention to see movies which will be made after broadcasting comic-based TV dramas. In each case, we analyzed the outcomes from potential customers by applying several variables including gender, exposure to the original and components of contents (plot, quality of act and music etc). Our study showed that potential customers prefer movies or TV dramas with quality of acting, directing, casting and storylines. Interestingly, the quality of acting is more important in dramas than in movies and casting is an appealing factor to potential customers in movies. In TV drama cases, potential customers have high watching intentions when they read the original content. Among them, male potential customer have low watching intentions on TV drama when they did not read the original content. However, female potential customers have high watching intentions on TV drama regardless of the previous exposure to the originals. In movie cases, female potential customers have higher intentions on seeing movies than male. These results suggest that one needs to consider several factors such as casting, acting and gender for generating transmedia contents with a high probability of success.