A Study of Consumer Attitudes Toward Television Drama Merchandise: A Korean TV Drama as an Example

• Main Authors: Szu-Yu Chen, 陳思伃
• Other Authors: Kuo-Qin Yan
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/14903613328071294225

碩士 === 朝陽科技大學 === 應用外語研究所 === 100 === The cultural and creative industries have been receiving increasing attention worldwide. In Asia, South Korea’s achievements in its cultural and creative sector, particularly in television dramas, have been greatly noticed. The popularity of Korean dramas often creates demand for program-related merchandise, which can generate additional benefits. This paper attempts to explore the influence of television drama merchandising on Taiwanese consumers’ attitudes toward the products by taking a Korean TV drama, entitled Minami Shineyo (You''re Beautiful), as a case. The research applies the connectedness construct to evaluate the intensity of the relationship(s) that viewers develop with the case TV miniseries and its characters, and balance theory to address the main research issue on the relationship between attitudes to the drama characters and attitudes to the drama merchandise. The concept is based on balance theory, in which attitude alignment is the interpretation of relationships between a triad composed of the consumer, the drama character, and the drama merchandise. An on-line survey with viewers of the case TV drama was conducted to investigate the relationship among the variables. A total of 747 valid questionnaires were collected and analyzed. The quantitative analysis of the questionnaires was performed using descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and Pearson correlations. Results of this study showed that, in general, the respondents were positive toward the drama paraphernalia. In addition, a positive correlation between viewers’ connectedness and their attitudes toward the products was found. Furthermore, the findings revealed that consumers’ attitudes to the drama characters were positively correlated with their attitudes to the drama merchandise. These results suggest some potential applications for marketing practice. Broadcasters in Taiwan could make greater use of television-based merchandising so that the establishment of a valuable chain of cultural and creative industries led by television programs may be achieved.