Title length does not signal scale: an empirical analysis of 3844 films (1980-2020)
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17979/redma.2026.30.1.12917Abstract
This article examines the role of film title length (characters/ syllables) as a systematic indicator of production scale (budget/runtime) among 3844 films from the United States (1980-2020). Drawing on signalling theory, processing fluency, and brand congruence, the study tested the following competing hypotheses: positive congruence (H1), negative compensation (H2), and independence (H3). Year-clustered OLS regressions revealed no substantive relationship (R² < 0.003), strongly supporting H3. Neither high budgets nor long runtimes were found to predict longer titles. Unexpectedly, titles were found to shorten significantly over time (-0.19% characters annually), reflecting adaptation to digital attention economies, with concise titles enhancing mobile CTR and recall. High-budget blockbusters exhibited a similar prevalence of short titles as low-budget independent films. The findings indicate a preference for semantic/emotional fit over length heuristics, releasing creative naming from scale constraints.. The implications of the study are that film marketing should focus on digital legibility over financial signalling.
Keywords:
Article Details
References
Alter, A. L., y Oppenheimer, D. M. (2009). Uniting the tribes of fluency to form a metacognitive nation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13(3), 219–235. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309341564
Austin, B. A. (1989). Immediate seating: A look at movie audiences. Wadsworth.
Bertrand, M., Duflo, E., y Mullainathan, S. (2004). How much should we trust differences-in-differences estimates? The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119(1), 249-275. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355304772839588
Birngruber, T., & Ulrich, R. (2019). Perceived duration increases not only with physical, but also with implicit size. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 45(6), 969. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000628
Eliashberg, J., Elberse, A., y Leenders, M. A. A. M. (2006). The motion picture industry: Critical issues in practice, current research, and new research directions. Marketing Science, 25(6), 638–661. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1050.0177
Grijalva, D. (2025). Movie industry [Conjunto de datos]. Kaggle. https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/danielgrijalvas/movies
Keller, K. L. (2008). Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity (3ª ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall.
Lakoff, G., y Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
Lowrey, T. M., Shrum, L. J., y Dubitsky, T. M. (2003). The relation between brand-name linguistic characteristics and brand-name memory. Journal of Advertising, 32(3), 7–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2003.10639137
Moul, C. C. (2007). Measuring word-of-mouth’s impact on theatrical movie admissions. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 16(4), 859–892. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2007.00160.x
Ravid, S. A. (1999). Information, blockbusters, and stars: A study of the film industry. Journal of Business, 72(4), 463–492. https://doi.org/10.1086/209624
Simonoff, J. S., y Sparrow, I. R. (2000). Predicting movie grosses: Winners and losers, blockbusters and sleepers. CHANCE, 13(3), 15–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2000.10542216
Simonton, D. K. (2009). Cinematic success criteria and their predictors: The art and business of the film industry. Psychology & Marketing, 26(5), 400–420. https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.20280
Song, H., y Schwarz, N. (2009). If it’s difficult to pronounce, it must be risky: Fluency, familiarity, and risk perception. Psychological Science, 20(2), 135–138. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02267.x
Spanos, A. (2019). Introduction to probability theory and statistical inference: Empirical modeling with observational data (2ª ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Spence, M. (1973). Job market signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3), 355–374. https://doi.org/10.2307/1882010