Abstract:

“The Queen’s Gambit” is a 7-episode Neflix movie which met great success Worldwide. Beth Harmon, the protagonist of the film, is a fictitious young chess player who despite several difficulties faced during her life, she managed to become a chess champion. “The Queen’s Gambit” stimulated a significant interest in chess and unique increase of chess fans, which also contributed to the sales increase of products and services related to chess. The aim of the current paper is to explore the impact of the film on consumers’ perceptions and attitudes towards chess, as a sport, and chess related products and services, giving emphasis on marketing implications. For the purpose of the study, a questionnaire was distributed twice (i.e., before and after watching the film) to 19 consumers who were not chess players. Results demonstrated a repositioning of chess, as the pre-existed perceptions of “boring” and “it’s not for me” changed towards “interesting” and “it could be a perfect sport for me”. Moreover, the purchase intentions of products (e.g., chess sets) and services (e.g., open an account in online chess platforms, arrange chess lessons) seem to experience great increase because of the film. Based on the results, marketing implications and particular marketing communication tactics are proposed for chess clubs and relative organizations, as well as for marketers who wish to invest to a film or a film persona to influence consumers’ perceptions and promote a product or service.