Entertainment Product Decisions, Episode 4: How to Develop New Successful Entertainment Products

Abstract

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 and responsibility. Such a culture must be supported by an organizational structure that attracts people with the right skills and values and equips and enables them to be creative, but with discipline. We complement this firm-level analysis of factors that contribute to prolific innovation activities with a product-level analysis of approaches that can improve managers’ understanding of a new product’s commercial potential. We review the different econometric prediction methods that are available for such a purpose and discuss concrete scientific prediction models for new product success and their use at different stages of the innovation process.