Whether “Iron Man 3” or “Gangnam Style,” movies, YouTube videos, music or tv shows are breaking the cultural and language barriers like never before. Supported through the growing of social media websites, entertainment is turning into a huge tool for connecting many countries around the world. That’s the bottom line of Edelman’s annual survey of consumer attitudes toward entertainment.
The survey firm asked consumers in 10 different countries and they found out that 67% of the respondents do believe that sharing and watching media has made them a stronger bond with other countries than before.
“In markets like Brazil and China and India, people are looking for more ways to interact with the rest of the world and they’re using entertainment to create a global link,” says Gail Becker, chair, U.S. Western Region, Canada and Latin America for Edelman.
The research has been excecuted for about seven years. But this year, Edelman’s research will go outside of the U.S. and the U.K. and will include other countries like Brazil, China and Korea that have become more important to Hollywood’s industry.
“I would like to think that the list of countries will be malleable as the world shifts,” Becker said. “I can’t imagine going back and just looking at the U.S. and the U.K. again. Global connectedness has really changed and transformed the way the world looks.”
More and more, movies such as “Iron Man 3” or “Fast & Furious 6” their stories are being made in foreign countries and with some actor/actress whom are drawn from a global talent pool. It’s an identification of a shift that has seen 70 percent of box office receipts come from abroad.
One year ago, as an example, China started to be the second biggest market for films, and experts now predict that it will exceed the U.S. in 2020.
Simultaneously, the booming of South Korean musician Psy’s single “Gangnam Style,” that has become the first YouTube video to achieve 1 billion views, indicates that although these cultural divides and yet they can be very successful.
But the survey says, U.S. and the U.K. people is still behind foreign consumers in regards to a willingness to watching a subtitled film. 60% of participants had watched or listened to entertainment in a language they don’t speak in comparison to 41% in the U.S., U.K. and Germany.
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