Exploring Personal Recommendations from New Contacts in the Movie Market

Cultural markets are characterized by uncertainty, prompting consumers to rely on various forms of social information. Personal recommendations, particularly from close networks, stand out as an important component. However, in different social settings, consumers may encounter recommendations from advisors outside their close network. Focusing on the movie market, this study investigates how different characteristics of such movie advisors influence the value placed on their recommendations. A factorial survey among students is employed to investigate the role of gender, migration background, socio-economic position (SEP), and patterns of movie consumption (voraciousness) in drawing the intentions to watch movies in three genres – action, comedy, and drama. The results show that recommendations from women and individuals extensively involved in movie watching hold higher value. There is a lack of evidence supporting gender-essentialist beliefs about advisors, since genre-based differences remain minimal. In-group favoritism is observed among women, whereas men are found to be indifferent. This study underlines the importance of advisors’ characteristics in predicting the weight of recommendations.