Star Wars Fandom

Prior Product Preference Dr Stephen Dann AMPR, QUT Influence of Previous Star Wars Films on Star Wars Fan Attitudes

Background A long time ago in a market research lab far far away…

Project Summary

Influence of Prior Product Attitudes towards

Episode III

Commercial exploitation of the franchise

Method

Survey

personally administered to the sample population

200 surveys / 178 useable response (89%)

estimated total population of 300 filmgoers (n=178, 60% response rate overall).

Selection of the sampling unit was based on the cinema where the author and their assistant had tickets to the midnight screening.

Study

Opinion towards prior Star Wars Movies

Attitude/Optimism towards Episode III

Attitude towards Advertising

Sample

178 respondents,

124 males

42 females (n=166)

Ages

16 to 41,

mean of age of 26.4 (SD=5.8).

Ethnicity

88% self identified as Australian,

12% self identifying with 11 different nationalities (n=164).

Prior Attitudes SD Mean Movie 0.66 4.63 Liked Episode IV: Return of the Jedi 0.59 4.74 Liked Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back 0.75 4.50 Liked Episode IV: A New Hope 1.08 3.71 Liked Episode II: Attack of the Clones 1.21 3.22 Liked Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Prior Product and Optimism

Movie Optimism Scale

based on in part on the Richins (1997) three item optimism scale.

Scale Vital Stats

inter item correlation mean of .5507,

alpha coefficient of .8529.

Factor Analysis

Bartlett's Test of Sphericity was significant,

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy was .762

Correlations were appropriate

initial eigenvalue of 3.213, explaining 64% of the variance

Prior Product v Optimism Table 4: Prior Product Preference and Optimism towards Episode III ** Correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed). 0.241** 0.333** 0.292** 0.437** 0.275** Summed scale .166* .230** .214** .224** - TV commercials have encouraged me to be optimistic about Episode III .240** .274** .325** .354** .203** I am hopeful about Episode III .258** .309** .279** .538** .387** I believe Episode III will be a good film - .195* - .290** - I am optimistic about Episode III .211** .331** .262** .388** .294** The trailer left me excited VI V IV II I Episode

Summary

Attitude towards Episode II produced the most consistent, and strongest, relationships.

liked Episode II felt more positively inclined towards Episode III.

absence of a relationship between preferences for Episode I, IV and VI was unexpected

weak relationship between Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and optimism for Episode III may be related to the darker overtones of both movies

Prior Product Experience and Advertising

Five scale summed item totals relating to advertising were correlated against the attitudes towards the five Star Wars movies

Attitudes to advertising were measured on a five item semantic differential scale

Semantic Scale

"not at all objectionable“

"not annoying“

"not at all exploitative“

"very persuasive“

"impressive, most impressive“

alpha of .8244,

average inter-item correlation of .4812

single factor (eigenvalue 2.938, variance 58.77%).

Ad Sample

Commercial Exploitation

See paper for the correlation table

Summary

Original Trilogy had no relationship with

attitudes towards the use of Star Wars character in advertising

the three copy tested items

Prequel movies had

significant results on all of the attitude of towards the Star Wars advertising

Episode IV had a weak correlation with the Website advertising

Prequel Results

Episode I

relatively low correlation scores,

not a strong predictor.

Episode II

higher propensity to be predictors of reactions to the Website advertising, and reaction to the overall advertising

-0.349** -0.278** Composite Ad Scale# -0.298** -0.203* Wookie# -0.372** -0.278* Website# -0.262** -0.204** Yoda# 0.256** - Summed Usage Episode II Episode I Correlations

Now what?