This research investigates innovation in how film producers use social digital tools to engage consumers, reduce demand uncertainty and respond to the challenge of digital disruption that affects the traditional film value chain. Through three empirical case studies of film production and exploitation, we examine examples of innovation in product, service, distribution, marketing and process, each having important implications at the organizational level. Our findings show that innovations in one area have important implications for other areas, distribution impacting on concepts of product and service, for example. We also show that internal firm micro-process dynamics impact directly on external interactions between the firm, consumers en masse and partner firms. Our research thus lies at the nexus of innovation, social media and uncertainty management, and questions the boundaries found in innovation 'types' or dominant taxonomies in traditional R&D frames.
*This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council Capacity Building Cluster Grant RES 187-24-0014Introduction Film production is facing increasing challenges caused by declining revenues from DVD and TV rights exploitation. Digital tools, applied in new marketing and distribution models, form innovative strategic responses to major threats to film businesses caused by digital disruption (UKFC, 2010). These interventions, however, occur far earlier in the product life cycle and are undertaken by different parties than has traditionally been the case and can be seen as the active management of consumer demand uncertainty (Miller & Shamsie, 1999;Dempster, 2006). We ask how social digital tools are applied to manage uncertainty in the UK film business and adopt an empirical case study approach to investigate this. In doing so, we address a gap in the literature at the nexus of innovation, social media and uncertainty management in a specific creative industry, film. Whilst Dempster (2006) explores risk and uncertainty management in theatre and Sgourev (2012) deals with risk and innovation in opera, the specific 'spreadable' nature of digital media (Jenkins, Ford & Green, 2012) has not been explored in an innovation context for managing uncertainty in this setting.