The dynamics of product identities in the European Film Market

We develop theoretical conceptions of product identity that are not necessarily fixed and stable even in a mature industry. Simply judging the quality of a product identity in terms of niche width may not capture uniqueness or novelty. Our measure of product identity assumes that audiences come to accept genres or combinations of genres that are relatively frequent and regard as problematic or unique genres or combinations of genres that occur less frequently. Using European film market data from 1996 to 2005, we examine how product identity is dynamically constructed by status, uniqueness, and attention. Our results suggest that 1) status created by field configuration events such as premier film festivals plays an important role in creating film product identity; 2) audience disapproval due to uniqueness or boundary-spanning in genre combination is significantly moderated by attention. The second finding has important implication for the studies that examine the relationship between multiple market memberships and economic, social outcomes. Our framework and findings call attention to the processes that empower certain actors with respect to identities and how these change over time.