Purpose - Consumers have memories of their past time that they have not experienced. So consumers want to experience the past time and get pleasure through historical contents such as movies or dramas. This is because the re-created the past time sets the identity of the consumers who live today, and in the process, it give consumers emotional comfort. Consumers do not remember and sympathize with all of their historical time. In general, consumers remember the time that their communities are proud of. As s result, historical content is seen as a hero, and through that, consumers can check their identity. Also consumers experience positive emotions such as self-esteem, gratitude and pride through identification with heroes. That is, through historical contents, consumers can identify themselves and replace the current negative emotions with positive ones. Therefore, this study presents narrative identity and historical nostalgia that can affect positive evaluation of historical contents and suggest the factors the can induce such effects. This study was conducted to explain what the consumption effect of historical content is from a marketing perspective and what constitutes a component of historical content as a factor driving this effect.
Research design, data, and methodology - This study has developed a questionnaire with 8 Hypotheses. The Films (‘Masquerade(2012)’, ‘Roaring Current(2014)’, ‘Assassination(2015)’, ‘The Age of Shadow(2016)’) and dramas(‘Six Flying Dragon(2015-2016)’, ‘Mr. Sunshine(2018-2019)’) were used as experimental contents. 268 college students participated in this empirical study, and structural equation model was used to verify hypotheses.
Results - Frist, narrative identity affects positive evaluation of historical contents. Nostalgia affect positive evaluation of historical contents. and narrative identity affects positive response of historical nostalgia. Second, character act relevance, circumstance similarity, and character attractiveness have positive influence upon response of narrative identity. Lastly, empathy for story and vividness of representation have also positive influence upon response of historical nostalgia.
Conclusion - This study contributes to the theoretical and managemental development of historical contents. This study shows that narrative identity and historical nostalgia are important for success of historical contents. In order for historical content to be successful, it must manage elements of character act relevance, circumstance similarity, and character attractiveness, empathy for story and vividness of representation.