It was a big weekend for television fans, with the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards celebrating some of the most popular and acclaimed shows of the last year. And while the Emmys tend to usher in the longer fall-to-spring television season, it also marks the end of many beloved summer series.
Big budget science fiction shows and steamy dramas dominated pop culture this summer – with fans cumulatively shelling out millions of dollars to buy merchandise inspired by their favorite programs, according to a recent study from e-commerce marketing automation platform Omnisend.
The study analyzed summer merchandise sales on Amazon (AMZN) for the most popular shows released this summer – including “Bridgerton,” “House of the Dragon,” and “Emily in Paris.” The study revealed that drama and romance television shows tend to outperform sci-fi and fantasy in merchandise sales – with drama and romance merch sales on Amazon increasing by 27.4%, while sci-fi and fantasy merch sales declined by 13.1% during the same period of time.
“Research has shown that the more relatable settings of drama series allow the production of more practical merch with wider appeal,” said Greg Zakowicz, Senior e-commerce Expert at Omnisend, in a statement.
“In contrast, as the declining sales numbers show, merch for fantasy shows, such as flashy t-shirts or action figures, mostly appeal to the die-hard fans and are a harder sell for casual viewers.”
The best-selling merchandise tended to be somewhat quotidian: a Regency-inspired “Bridgerton” scrunchie was the summer’s top selling television-inspired product. But there is still a place for more impractical products – ten percent of all “House of Dragon” merch sales came from an action figure depicting main character Alicent Hightower.
“Television productions are increasingly integrating merch planning into their strategy, which also influences things such as costume or set design, or even the characters themselves to create more ‘shoppable’ content,’” said Zakowicz.
Continue reading to learn more about summer’s most-popular television series and the products they inspired, according to Omnisend’s study.
