Author(s)

Ashish Varma

Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, India.

The Netflix movie “To all the boys I’ve loved before” released in the USA on 17th Aug 2018 was linked to a substantial increase in sales of the probiotic drink Yakult. This study probes the phenomenon with an analysis of tweets for the first three weeks after the release of the movie and also assesses reasons for the phenomenon with the theoretical underpinning of the Expectancy Valence (EV) theory. The first section of the study was conducted by undertaking a probe on 1922 tweets made during 17th Aug 2018 (the release date of the movie in the USA) till 6th September 2018. The second part of the study was conducted by taking intensive in-depth interviews of the target segment after 6th September 2018. The study highlights the growing significance of social media in shaping the sentiments by influencing perception and opinion (valence), which eventually influences the sales of products (expectation). The study found out that the sharp increase in sales was due to positive behavioral sentiment created by the social media.

Expectancy-Value Theory, Twitter, Qualitative Method

Varma, A. (2018) Qualitative Evidence for a Behavioral Extension of the Expectancy Valence Theory: The Netflix-Twitter-Yakult Case. Theoretical Economics Letters, 8, 3457-3469. doi: 10.4236/tel.2018.815212.