Modelling Price Dispersion as an Outcome of Competition in the Irish Grocery Market

The paper empirically models price dispersion between related brands within product categories of the Irish Independent Grocery market. Retail brand prices are averaged over the independent shops stocking the brand. Since individual brands are retailed through different groups of shops, brands are priced over heterogeneous consumer segments. Brand price dispersion is estimated to increase with competition when conditioned on brand distribution structures, while controlling for other observed and unobserved deterministic factors. The data suggest that brand pricing across consumer groups induce varying degrees of localised price competition rather than pricing across segments to extract consumer willingness to pay.     

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF RETAILER STORE BRAND PRESENCE ON MANUFACTURER BRANDS IN AN EQUILIBRIUM FRAMEWORK*

This article assesses the impact of retailer store brand products on manufacturer brand prices, profitability and consumer welfare in Boston's white fluid milk market. Estimates from a random coefficients logit demand model are used to specify and test a set of pricing games. Under the selected model, milk manufacturers are Stackelberg leaders to retailers, and store brand milks are procured by retailers at cost. The model is used to investigate counterfactual markets without retailer store brand milks. Counterfactual Simulation results indicate that store brands increase channel profits, retailer profits and consumer welfare, while having mixed effects on equilibrium retail prices.     

Brand‐Specific Design Effects: Form and Function

Product design is inherently a key component of brand strategy. Accordingly, significant resources are invested to improve product and brand performance; however, foundations for understanding the role product design plays in influencing actual consumer opinions from the marketplace have not been fully explored in the literature. This paper develops a conceptual framework illustrating how two critical design factors—form and function—impact consumer opinion and delineate brand‐specific effects. Nonmonotonic effects are identified, as well as the interaction effects of the individual factors among the dimensions. A longitudinal model based on objective measures of form and function is tested with a data set developed from models available in the U.S. automotive market from 1999–2007; it includes 16 firms, 32 brands, and 137 products. The results indicate the relationships between factors of form and function are multifarious and complex, but clearly play a significant role in forming consumer opinions, although they do exhibit diminishing returns. The findings further indicate brand‐specific effects exist, and consumer opinions vary by brand. The findings provide foundations for understanding the interplay between product development and brand management. Overall, this research supports the notion that brand strategies can be supported through the management of design dimensions.     

Progress and Challenges in Product Line Pricing

In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in research on product line pricing. Modelers in multiple disciplines have offered methods for the optimal design/selection and pricing of the products in new or modified product lines. Behavioral scientists have contributed insights on how consumers' perceptions of product line prices, attributes, and quality levels influence their evaluation of the alternative choices. Significantly, the work of both modelers and behavioral scientists is distributed across three types of product line contexts: price‐quality product lines, multi‐attribute product lines, and product lines that include a core product plus options. This paper reviews this literature, and assesses its usefulness for managers. One observation is that, while scholars have developed approaches to optimization that offer increased scope and tractability, the applicability of these models is constrained by the narrow specification of profit functions, and the limited consideration of competitive and other dynamic forces. A second conclusion is that the managerial usefulness of the behavioral science research on perceptions and product‐line choice has been limited by a dependence on attribute‐based estimation of utilities, uncertainty about possible interaction effects, and an excessive focus on the cannibalization aspects of product line pricing. Based on the review, a research agenda is identified for enhancing the applicability of research on consumer perceptions and choice to product line pricing decisions, and for building more complete product line price optimization models.     

Price reaction functions and conjectural variations

Price conjectural variations are estimated to measure the degree of price competition in a product differentiated oligopoly. The empirical model is a simultaneous equation system of product demand and price reaction functions. Own and cross price demand elasticities are estimated in conjunction with the price conjectural variations and price reaction function elasticities. The conjectural variations are estimated for pairs of ready-to-eat breakfast cereal products using brand price and quantity data. The empirical results reject competitive brand pricing behavior in favor of independent or collusive pricing. Further, the hypothesis of a unique consistent conjecture is rejected.     

Consumer Innovativeness and the Use of New versus Extended Brand Names for New Products*

Despite the importance of branding to new product success, little research has been conducted on how individual adoption orientation might affect brand name preferences. This paper draws on the diffusion literature to investigate how consumer innovativeness affects consumer response to alternative branding strategies (i.e., new vs. extended brands, for new products). The results of an empirical study found that consumer innovativeness has a greater effect on new product evaluations for new brand names relative to extended brand names. Also, results indicate that highly innovative consumers evaluate new products with new brand names more favorably than brand extensions. Furthermore, consumer confidence in the new product was found to mediate the effects of consumer innovativeness and its interaction with brand name type on new product evaluation. Implications include not only giving greater managerial consideration to using new brands but also supporting the chosen branding strategy with appropriate promotional efforts for respective adopter groups.     

Brand Extension Effects and Core Attributes of Experience Product Franchises: A Bayesian Approach

An experience product's quality is difficult to assess prior to purchase, largely due to the limited availability of information before consumption. In the absence of perfect information, firms routinely use certain market signals to provide product quality information to consumers. Accordingly, drawing from signaling theory, this research aims to identify a collection of product core attributes in the form of signals and brand extension features to successfully manage experience product franchises. In doing so, we make use of Bayesian models with both deterministic effects via the use of predictor variables and probabilistic effects via the use of brand extension properties. Such models allow us to explore specifically the relative performance effects of the parent product of a franchise and of its extensions given the same level of product core attributes. The results of this study, based on the motion picture franchise data, indicate that there are critical product core attributes such as continuity, timing, and prior perception that collectively lead to successful successive generations. Furthermore, our study shows that brand features measured by the relationships between the parent product and its subsequent extensions at the infancy of the franchise are essential for the continuation of experience products. Similarly, our results indicate that the parent product's success on later extensions' performance starts to diminish, implying that the established “brand name” is what carries the franchise forward.     

When Visual Product Features Speak the Same Language: Effects of Shape‐Typeface Congruence on Brand Perception and Price Expectations*

Recent studies in marketing research and consumer psychology indicate that congruence, as opposed to incongruence, of symbolic meanings connoted across or within marketing mix elements positively affects consumer response. However, controlled studies addressing congruence effects among visual product features such as shape and typeface are nonexistent. Since consumer products comprise multiple visual elements that connote symbolic meanings, and considering that a product's visual appearance is an important determinant of consumer choice, such studies are called for. Based on processing fluency accounts, the authors argue that shape‐typeface congruence facilitates stimulus processing, thereby positively affecting perceptions of brand credibility, brand aesthetics, and brand value; the latter reflected in higher price expectations. Two studies were conducted to test these predictions. In study 1 , two shape variants and two typeface variants of a fictitious brand of bottled water connoted either luxury or casualness. Cross‐pairing the two shapes with the two typefaces resulted in four product variants, either congruent or incongruent in terms of the symbolic meanings connoted. Participants were randomly presented with one of the product variants, after which they filled out a questionnaire comprising the dependent measures. Largely in line with expectations, results revealed overall positive effects of meaning congruence on perceptions of brand credibility and price expectations. In addition to replicating the findings from study 1 using another set of stimuli, study 2 tested the prediction that meaning congruence positively affects perceptions of brand aesthetics. As in study 1 , four product variants were created by cross pairing two product shapes and two typefaces, this time connoting either masculinity or femininity. In line with the findings from study 1 , results revealed overall positive congruence effects. In addition, subsequent analyses showed that perceived brand aesthetics partially mediates congruence effects on price expectations, indicating that consumers expect to pay more for congruent variants because they are considered more attractive. The findings presented testify to the importance of careful consideration of visual product features and the symbolic meanings they connote, and stress the importance of perceived brand aesthetics. In discussing these findings, it is proposed that congruence effects and the mediating processes involved may vary across product categories and depend on consumer personality. In addition, the findings presented are discussed in relation to research indicating that moderate degrees of incongruence may be useful for attracting consumer attention and stimulating information processing. Managerial implications and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Product Hierarchy and Brand Strategy Influences on the Order of Entry Effect for Consumer Packaged Goods

Manufacturers focus on becoming more agile, software firms deploy rapid application development tools—everyone is in a hurry. Although we all understand the benefits of being first to market, we understand just as clearly that not all first-to-market products enjoy the same, sustainable benefits from being market pioneers. Why do some pioneering products experience a more significant order-of-entry effect than others? Roger A. Kerin, Gurumurthy Kalyanaram, and Daniel J. Howard examine two factors–product hierarchy and brand strategy—which may influence the magnitude of this effect for new consumer packaged goods. First, they hypothesize that pioneering a new product class offers a greater advantage than introducing a new form to an existing product class. Second, they predict that the order-of-entry effect will be greater for brand extensions than for entirely new brands. Finally, considering both product hierarchy and brand strategy, they expect that the order-of-entry advantage for brand extensions over new brands will be significantly greater within new product classes than for new forms of existing products. These hypotheses are tested using data from the Information Resources, Inc. Behaviorscan° data set. Collected from 2,500 household panel members, 75 supermarkets, and 25 drugstores, this database contains weekly measures of brand trial penetration as well as brand distribution, price, and promotion information in eight geographic markets from the period 1983–1988. The models developed in this study explore the relationships among brand trial penetration, product hierarchy, brand strategy, order of entry, lag time between successive brand entrants, and marketing mix variables (i.e., price, promotion, distribution, and advertising). The study strongly supports all three hypotheses. In particular, the analysis clearly demonstrates that the order-of-entry effect is greatest for a new product class pioneered by a brand extension. Order of entry has the least effect on a new product form pioneered by an entirely new brand. For a company seeking a competitive advantage from being first to market, innovation in product function offers greater potential benefit than innovation in product form. Such a company can also benefit from building on the name and reputation of its established brands. Although the study finds these order-of-entry effects significant, the effects of marketing mix variables such as product price and promotion are consistently stronger.     

Credit Unions: Fringe Suppliers or Cournot Competitors?

Recent work has demonstrated the competitive relationship between credit unions and banks in consumer financial services. One issue underlying the nature of competition between the two, however, concerns the most appropriate way to model their interactions.Two possible approaches are the dominant-firm price-leadership model and the generalized Cournot model. In the former model, credit unions act as fringe suppliers who are price-takers in a homogeneous product market. In the latter, they possess (limited) market power. Oneway to distinguish the two is by examining the impact of credit union market shares on their pricing, as the two models imply differing effects. Our results are more consistent with the ``credit unions as fringe suppliers' view. Using a pooled cross-section time seriesof 77 small local consumer lending markets throughout the U.S., each with 10 observations over 5 years, the focus is on a loan product ex ante thought to be sold in local markets, unsecured (non-credit card) loans. For this product, increasing credit union market sharesreduces credit union loan rates, consistent with a fringe supplier hypothesis.     

FROM EXPERIENCE: Products Talking to People—Conversation Closes the Gap between Products and Consumers

Product design is a complex undertaking, requiring manufacturers to find a balance among business goals, regulatory guidelines, the requirements of the distributor and retailer, and consumer demand. Along the way, it is sometimes easy to forget that, in the end, an actual person will attempt to operate the product.
Manufacturers are skilled at collecting and analyzing data about their customers and at using this information to formulate a "brand message": those things a company wants to communicate to consumers, the expectations that should be set in the consumer's mind, and what feelings and associations consumers should take away from an interaction with the company and its products. But while this information may be useful in understanding demographic and economic aspects of consumers, it often does not help the manufacturer understand how the product and user should interact—how the product and user should "talk" to each other. Something is lost in translation as a product goes from being a conceptual instantiation of a brand to being an actual physical object that a consumer must communicate with and must manipulate. The result is an experience that reflects poorly on the product and the manufacturer.
This article presents a framework for developing the interaction between user and product, using the metaphor of conversation between people. Human beings have developed a set of conversational rules and norms over the last few thousand years, and by leveraging these standards, manufacturers can create product interactions that provide a better experience to the consumer.     

Consumer willingness to pay for traditional food products

Reflecting the growing interest from both consumers and policymakers, and building on recent developments in Willingness to Pay (WTP) methodologies, we evaluate consumer preferences for an archetypal traditional food product. Specifically we draw on stated preference data from a discrete choice experiment, considering the traditional Hungarian mangalitza salami. A WTP space specification of the generalized multinomial logit model is employed, which accounts for not only heterogeneity in preferences but also differences in the scale of the idiosyncratic error term. Results indicate that traditional food products can command a substantial premium, albeit contingent on effective quality certification, authentic product composition and effective choice of retail outlet. Promising consumer segments and policy implications are identified.     

Enhancing Consumers' Affection for a Brand Using Product Design

Product design is an integral component of a brand and an important driver of brand equity. For the brand, product design is an important tool for driving differentiation, creating value for both the consumer and the firm, driving consumer preferences, and creating a sustainable competitive advantage. At the firm level, the importance of investing in design has been substantiated by studies that suggest firms capable of creating innovative design and providing superior consumer value perform better in the marketplace. Thus, product design clearly presents an important area of research for those studying and managing brands. In this context, the goal of this research is to explain the brand‐level affective outcomes that product‐level design features can create. This paper develops a conceptual framework and hypotheses that theoretically connect design‐based values, at the product level, to affective brand‐level relational outcomes with the brand. The drivers of product affection include social value, altruistic value, functional value, emotional value, and economic value. Analogous to “firm affection,” the paper postulates a brand affection construct that is defined as the passion and pride that a consumer feels about owning a brand. Using syndicated product‐level data from the automotive industry collected from a national sample of consumers, 712 useable consumer/product observations of 30 small vehicles are employed in the analysis. A confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation model are developed to test the conceptual model. This research finds that the social value and emotional value that a design provides to consumers have a greater effect on brand affection than purely transactional values, such as functional value or economic value. This research contributes to the literature by providing evidence that product design‐related values are multifaceted and can contribute to relational outcomes, such as brand affection. It contributes to practice by highlighting the means by which design can be used as a strategic tool to create a sustainable long‐lasting relationship with the consumer, and provides managers with a framework to assess the impact of design‐based values on long‐term relationship‐based outcomes. The results provide new insights about how consumers' perceptions of the value of product design at the product level can help create enduring relationships with brands.     

Research Opportunities Related to Consumer Response to Product Design*

This essay identifies five research opportunities that concern consumer response to product design. The first opportunity involves the need for more research on the interaction between form and function in consumer product evaluations. To this end, more knowledge about how product appearance characteristics influence consumer evaluation of both product form and function, and how this differs between countries and in time, is needed. The second research opportunity concerns the influence of consumer input in the front end of new product development on product success. Although the positive effect of market information use on product success is known, more actionable insight into which consumer information or input is beneficial in which circumstances is largely missing. The third opportunity for research concerns how to include subjective product attributes in concept testing. Getting valid feedback from consumers, which includes functional as well as emotional and experiential aspects, can improve proficiency in the early stages of product development. In this essay, several ways of approaching this research endeavor are highlighted. Next to enhancing market receipt and the assessment of product design, two topics that concern consumer response to product design from a more managerial viewpoint are identified. The first of these is strategic management of product styling. The importance and opportunities of visual design for brand management has gained more attention in the literature; different strategies and the cases in which they are beneficial are issues for further research. And finally, the design of product service systems (PSSs) provides opportunities for future research. Here, engendering perceptual unity between products and services and an explicit managing of meanings and feelings that PSSs should communicate are issues at play.     

Pricing decision for substitutable products with retail competition in a fuzzy environment

This paper studies the pricing problem of substitutable products in a supply chain with one manufacturer and two competitive retailers. The consumer demands and manufacturing costs are of uncertainty, which are described by fuzziness. Based on different market structures, one centralized pricing model and three decentralized pricing models are developed, and the corresponding analytical equilibrium solutions are obtained using the game-theoretic approach. Finally, numerical examples are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results, and to gain additional managerial insights.     

The Effect of New Product Preannouncements on the Evaluation of Other Brand Products

Some firms preannounce new products long before they are actually available on the market. Previous research has investigated the effects of such new product preannouncements (NPPs) on consumer and competitor responses. This paper examines how NPPs affect consumers' construal of and preferences for the new product and, in turn, how these evaluations influence their preferences for the brands' other products. Specifically, the paper demonstrates that consumers' construal level of NPPs spills over to their construal of other products in the brand family, causing a positive, biased evaluation of these products. Three experimental studies reveal that the mere information about an NPP can shift evaluation of currently available brand products in a positive direction through construal‐level spillover and increased perceptions of similarity. The studies contrast NPPs to new product announcements (NPAs) and consistently find more positive results for the former. Moreover, the studies find that product newness has a moderating effect on the results, such that the positive spillover effects are more pronounced for really new products than for incrementally new products. The results also show that the effects are contingent on the credibility of the NPP: If consumers do not consider the NPPs credible, no positive spillover effects will materialize. Finally, the studies demonstrate that the positive evaluative spillover is specific to the products in the brand family and does not affect consumers' perceptions or choice of competitor products. Consumers actually rate the competing brand's remaining products lower when the focal brand engages in NPPs. The study has important implications for managers regarding how to use NPPs to influence consumers' construal and evaluations of brand products.     

Optimal dynamic volume-based price regulation

We consider a model of optimal price regulation in markets where demand is sluggish and asymmetric providers compete on quality. Using a spatial model, which is suitable to investigate the health care and education sector, we analyse within a dynamic set-up the scope for price premiums or penalties on volume. Under the assumption of symmetric cost information, we show that the socially optimal time path of quality provision off the steady state can be replicated by a simple dynamic pricing rule where the dynamic part of the rule is ex-ante non-discriminatory in the sense that the price premium or penalty on volume is common across providers, despite their differing production costs. Whether the price schedule involves a penalty or a premium on volume relates to two concerns regarding production costs and consumer benefits, which go in opposite directions. Price adjustments over time occur only through the price penalty or premium, not time directly, which highlights the simplicity and thus applicability of this regulation scheme.     

Multiproduct retailing and consumer shopping behavior: The role of shopping costs

We empirically examine the role of shopping costs in consumer shopping behavior in a context of competing differentiated supermarkets that supply similar product lines. We develop and estimate a model of demand in which consumers can purchase multiple products from multiple stores in the same week, and incur transaction costs of dealing with supermarkets. We show that a similar model without shopping costs predicts a larger proportion of multistop shoppers and overestimates own-price elasticities and product markups. Further, we use our model along with a model of competition between supermarkets to study two practices that are commonly used by supermarkets: product delisting and loss-leader pricing. We show that the presence of shopping costs makes product delisting less profitable whereas it makes loss-leader pricing more profitable compared to a context in which consumers do not incur shopping costs.     

How Do Consumer Characteristics Affect the Bias in Measuring Willingness to Pay for Innovative Products?

Getting the price right is essential for successful new product introductions. An accurate estimate of consumers' willingness to pay is a crucial part of this task. Measurement of willingness to pay for innovations, however, often yields biased results. In this paper, we investigate consumer‐related characteristics and motives that might underlie this bias. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model, we develop a conceptual model to identify consumer characteristics relevant for preference measurement for innovative products. In doing so, two main factors that potentially influence hypothetical bias are distinguished: ability and motivation. Our conceptual discussion and empirical results demonstrate that the validity of willingness to pay statements is higher among consumers who show a high ability to assess the new product's utility and who are truly interested in purchasing the new product. Counter to intuition, willingness to pay statements from innovators, consumers with good product category knowledge, or consumers who perceive the new product to be highly innovative are relatively more biased and should be interpreted with caution. This research is among the first to look at consumer characteristics rather than methodological issues when it comes to measuring consumer willingness to pay for innovative products. Our conceptual discussion and empirical examination of the drivers of hypothetical bias can be used to refine the validity of the results of the direct willingness to pay approach. These findings should help improve new product pricing surveys and open new avenues for research in measuring consumer preferences.     

Market regulation of voluntary add-on contracts

This paper analyzes contract choices and the effectiveness of consumer protection policies when firms can offer voluntary add-on insurance for their products. We develop a model in which a base product can be sold together with a voluntary extended warranty contract that insures consumers against the risk of product breakdown. Some consumers do not pay attention to extended warranties before making base product choices, but overestimate the value of such warranties at the point of sale. Under retail competition, the consumers’ option to buy multiple base products can endogenously create a base price floor that may prevent firms from redistributing the full warranty profits via loss-leadership. Inducing competition in the warranty market weakly increases consumer welfare and weakly outperforms a minimum warranty standard, which can even reduce consumer surplus. The results are consistent with the effects of recent changes regarding extended warranty regulation by UK legislators.