Necessary and sufficient conditions for audience success of media product brands; A field report on a two-step fsQCA with 10 conditions and 255 cases

Abstract

In a literature review and an explorative pre-study ten building blocks of audience success of media product brands were distilled, and confirmed, respectively. The causally remote conditions (building blocks of success) are organizational facets, human resources, leadership, internal processes, environmental orientation, and external evaluation. Causally proximate are the conditions form, content, marketing and distribution. The research questions of this paper are: which conditions are necessary, and which (combinations of) conditions are sufficient for audience success? An online survey of 255 media decision makers in DACH countries was carried out, to assess a) to which extent the factors (items) belonging to the building blocks of success (concepts) were achieved, and b) to which extent success was achieved by the media product brand the respondents are involved with. A two-step fsQCA with ‘Enhanced Standard Analysis’ was deployed to find necessary and sufficient building blocks of audience success. Four conditions were qualified as necessary for audience success: form, distribution, human resources and environmental orientation. In addition, four sufficient combinations of building blocks for success emerged in the analysis.