The effect of anomalous emotional scenes in children’s movies on future revenues

Studying children’s consumption behavior is a sensitive topic, especially in marketing, because children are often not the decision makers for the products and items they consume. Rather, the parents are the moderators and possessors of the purchasing power. Accordingly, parents’ prepurchase acceptance is a crucial determinant in the purchase decisions. Several factors related to the ethical content of children’s movies affect parents’ purchase decisions, including the level of emotional scenes that are depicted in a movie. This research aims to explore the effect of anomalous emotional scenes (AES) in children’s movies on the future revenues of production companies through parents’ acceptance/rejection rates and, consequently reactions to the AES. A total of 791 participants/parents from eight different countries participated by completing a questionnaire for the purpose of this study. Cultural and religious factors were taken into consideration to ensure cross-cultural results. The findings from the quantitative analysis of this study revealed that Anomalous Emotional Scenes perceived by parents in children’s movies negatively impact their demand because of ethical concerns, which are influenced by the cultural factor and not a religion factor. The negative impact consequently reduces potential new and repetitive purchases, which subsequently affects the incremental earnings of the company and thus reduces the overall revenues of the movie. Therefore, AES are a new additional factor that affects the revenues of children’s movies.