The effect of exogenous product familiarity on endogenous consumer search

When a consumer is familiar with one product but not its competitor, she is faced with a decision: either buy what she knows, or engage in search to learn more. When search is costly, competing firms may attempt to encourage or discourage search by adjusting prices. In this paper we consider how competitive dynamics between two quality differentiated firms are affected if one product enjoys a familiarity advantage. Familiarity is defined as a consumer’s ex-ante knowledge of fit for a particular product. An increase in the level of familiarity for one product allows a firm to charge higher prices since there are more consumers with information on that product relative to the competition. We call this the direct effect of familiarity. However, an increase in familiarity also has an indirect effect, since it gives the rival firm a stronger incentive to decrease price in order to encourage searching, in turn increasing overall competition. The effect of familiarity on profits depends on the magnitudes of these effects, and it is moderated by the level of quality differentiation between products. For very high or very low levels of differentiation, the results are relatively straightforward. However, when the level of differentiation is moderate, the results are more nuanced, with the higher-quality firm realizing higher profits from more familiarity, even if it must lower prices due to the indirect effect. We also find that, contrary to conventional wisdom, overall competition may be higher when firms are more quality differentiated. This is driven by the fact that higher quality differences bolster the indirect effect, with a lower quality firm providing deeper price cuts to counter increased familiarity of a high quality rival. We conclude by examining how changes in the cost of searching impact equilibrium outcomes.

     

Product differentiation under imperfect information: When does offering a lower quality pay?

In this paper, we extend the Varian (1980) model to examine endogenous quality differentiation by firms, with a particular emphasis on the interplay between the firms’ product quality decisions and the ensuing price rivalry. Specifically, we assume that the price-sensitive (or informed) consumers hold a lower valuation for product quality than the brand-loyal (or uninformed) consumers. It is shown that the firms will choose differentiated qualities for a broad class of consumer utility functions and production technologies. We obtain two results. First, the equilibrium quality choices are efficient as they are also the welfare-maximizing qualities chosen by a social planner. The equilibrium qualities are as if one firm serves only its loyal consumers and the other serves only the price-sensitive consumers, even though they each serve both types of consumers (at least for some fraction of time). Second, the firm choosing the lower quality makes greater profits and also prices more aggressively, in the sense that it maintains a lower maximum price and offers discounts more often. The lower-quality product is more profitable because it yields higher social surplus when consumed by the price-sensitive consumers.

Impact of personalization and privacy concerns on information disclosure and pricing

Advances in IT have enabled some firms to offer personalized products according to the private information disclosed by consumers, while others are still offering standardized products, which brings about asymmetric competition. For consumers, disclosing private information for personalized products leads to reduced misfit cost as well as privacy loss. To illuminate the impact of consumers' trade-off between the benefit of information disclosure and the associated privacy concerns on firms' asymmetric price competition, we consider a setting where only one firm is capable of product personalization based on consumers' personal information. The capable firm makes a profit from selling the product and monetizing consumers' information. We demonstrate that as the capable firm becomes more adept at personalization, he may raise or lower the price depending on his profit foci, and an improvement in his capability does not always guarantee a higher profit. Counterintuitively, an increase in the unit misfit cost (i.e., greater product differentiation) can, under certain circumstances, intensity price competition, making both firms worse off and leading to higher consumer surplus. We also show that when consumers are more privacy-concerned, there exists an indirect effect that weakens the impact of an increase in price on the monetization of consumers’ information, and hence price competition can be mitigated and both firms can be better off. Furthermore, we demonstrate that product personalization with misfit-reducing effect always increases consumer surplus under the asymmetric competition. Our findings provide firms and policy-makers with great managerial insights.     

Who should practice price discrimination using rebates in an asymmetric duopoly?

Price discrimination is generally thought to improve firm profits by allowing firms to extract more consumer surplus. In competition, however, price discrimination may also be costly to the firm because restrictive incentive compatibility conditions may allow the competing firm to gain market share at the discriminating firm’s expense. Therefore, with asymmetric competition, it may be the case that one firm would let the other firm assume the burden of price discrimination. We investigate optimal segmentation in a market with two asymmetric firms and two heterogeneous consumer segments that differ in the importance of price and product attributes. In particular, we investigate second-degree price discrimination under competition with explicit incentive compatibility constraints thus extending prior work in marketing and economics. Focusing on the managerial implications, we explore whether it would be profitable for either or both firms to pursue a segmentation strategy using rebates as a mechanism. We identify conditions under which one or both firms would want to pursue such segmentation. We find that segmentation lessens competition for the less price-sensitive consumer segment and that this results in higher profits to both firms. A key to understanding this result is that segmentation leads to consumer remixing. We establish the key result that if firms are asymmetric in their attractiveness to consumers, the disadvantaged firm in our model is more likely to pursue a segmentation strategy than its rival in equilibrium. We then ask whether this result prevails in practice. To this end, we explore competitive segmentation empirically and are able to verify that disadvantaged firms indeed pursue segmentation through rebates with greater likelihood.     

Price competition during and after promotions

We provide a framework for setting regular prices and using promotional discounts in a duopoly where long‐term promotional effects are present and the firms' pricing and promotional strategies are common knowledge (e.g., as in online markets). We show that at equilibrium, the two firms may not promote and instead adopt an Everyday Low Price (EDLP) strategy. Consumers' tendency to stockpile promoted products, the level of brand loyalty and product differentiation, and the possibility of a postpromotional sales increase critically influence regular prices, price discount rates, and profits. Under some conditions consumer stockpiling intensifies promotional competition and reduces firms' profits while the possibility of attracting new consumers reduces the need to heavily promote and ensures better profits. Managerial implications are discussed. Copyright © 2007 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Marketing compatible, yet differentiated, products : In search of competitive equilibria when network externalities are at work

Many goods are characterized by the fact that their utility increases with the number of consumers who buy them. It is the case for computers or communication networks, for example. Such goods are said to be subject to network externalities. We study those externalities in the context of a product differentiation model where product characteristics (or the image of the firm) are taken into account.We consider a market where two firms sell differentiated products and we study an equilibrium where the firms are competing in quantities (Cournot model) as well as in quality (two-stage game). We show how the degree of differentiation between the firms (or their products) and the compatibility decision are affected by the externality effect.     

A model of product compatibility introduction with consumer recognition

Firms recognizing consumers often use behavior-based pricing (BBP), i.e., condition prices on purchase history. Prior research studies the framework with independent product offerings and shows that BBP leads to poaching and decreases each firm's profits. In this paper, we investigate the efficacy of BBP in a two-period duopoly where firms provide compatible product categories and endogenously determine the levels of cross-compatibility. We first revisit the impact of behavior-based pricing in the traditional framework with independent offerings and verify the competition-increasing effect of BBP. We then examine how the impact of BBP differs when firms introduce product compatibility. Interestingly, we find that firms can benefit from BBP when firms introduce product compatibility. More specifically, when the value consumers obtain from perfect compatibility is moderate, implementing BBP is more profitable than without consumer recognition. The intuition is that when the value of perfect compatibility is medium, consumers do not expect good switching deals in the second period and firms can charge higher prices in the first period. Our findings not only complement the BBP literature but also shed light on the firms' strategic decisions on product compatibility.     

Effects of distribution channel structure in markets with vertically differentiated products

This study examines how the structure of distribution channels may influence firms’ quality and price strategies and how they may in turn affect consumer welfare. It treats product quality as a decision variable so that the degree of product substitution becomes endogenous rather than exogenous as in previous studies. We find that, with vertically differentiated firms, the changes in channel structure have asymmetric effects depending on whether they occur in the high-quality channel or in the low-quality channel. The product quality of the high-quality channel decreases when it decentralizes unilaterally. However, product quality of the low-quality channel would increase when it decentralizes. The high-quality manufacturer and its channel suffer more from decentralization in comparison with their low-quality counterparts, and the low-quality manufacturer actually receives greater profits when both channels are decentralized. An important driver behind these asymmetries is the interaction between firms’ pricing incentives in integrated versus decentralized channels and what consumer segments they serve. Our analysis indicates that decentralization may reduce consumer welfare, but decentralization in the high-quality channel hurts consumers more than that in the low-quality channel. Therefore in a competitive environment where firms make both quality and price decisions, channel integration would have significant welfare enhancement effects through the elimination of double marginalization, especially if it happens in the high-quality channel. Moreover, we demonstrate that once quality is endogenized, integration is the only equilibrium of channel structure choices. This suggests that the private incentives of firms may actually benefit consumers but do not have to be in line with the general preference of industry regulation for decentralization.     

Complementary Goods: Prices and Consumer Welfare Under Duopoly and Monopoly

We examine prices, profits, and consumer surplus for differentiated complementary goods under duopoly and a multi‐product monopoly. We find that little can be said about the relative magnitudes of prices of the components of a system of complementary goods under the alternative market structures. Although demand complementarity can lead to lower prices for either the primary or the secondary good under monopoly, both prices are not necessarily lower. The results unique to this paper are that, when two complementary goods form a system, the system price is unambiguously lower and consumer surplus and profits are higher under a multi‐product monopoly.     

不同消费者分布下双寡头产品差异化策略博弈分析

对产品实施差异化是企业的一种重要的竞争策略。传统的Hotelling模型通过假定消费者均匀分布在市场之中,研究企业产品差异化问题。在传统模型的基础上建立了一种消费者非均匀分布的双寡头定位定价竞争模型,用动态博弈论的方法求出了模型的子博弈纳什均衡,并根据均衡结果分析了几种消费者分布下双寡头企业的产品差异化策略、定位策略以及定价策略。     

The timing of version releases: A dynamic duopoly model

In many R&D-intensive consumer product categories, firms deliver value to consumers through the quality enhancements provided by new and improved versions of existing products. Therefore, important marketing decisions relate to a firm’s strategy for developing quality enhancements and releasing new versions. This paper explores this type of product development using a dynamic duopoly model that endogenizes each firm’s decisions over how much to invest in R&D and when to release new versions. Specifically, I explore how two key industry fundamentals—the degree of horizontal differentiation and the cost of releasing a new version—affect firms’ product development strategies and, accordingly, the evolution of industry structure. I find that varying the degree of horizontal differentiation gives rise to three distinctly different types of competitive dynamics: preemption races when the degree of horizontal differentiation is low; phases of accommodation when it is moderate; and asymmetric R&D wars when it is high. Furthermore, I find that an increase in the cost of releasing a new version can induce firms to compete more aggressively for the lead and, in doing so, release new versions more frequently despite the higher cost.     

Taking marketing strategy risks with seemingly no expected gains

This paper investigates the competitive rationale for firms to invest in marketing activities aiming to enhance valuation and achieve differentiation and competitive advantage, while carrying the strategic risks of causing unintended negative consequences. We build a stylized theoretical model where firms offering similar (homogenous) products are competing by determining their marketing strategy and pricing. Each firm must choose between several marketing activities that have different potentials of enhancing consumers’ product valuations while carrying some risk of lowering consumer valuation if unintended negative outcomes occur. The stochastic nature of marketing implies that (1) even when both firms invest the same amount of money aiming to enhance product valuations by the same level, there will be a variety of (posterior) vertical differentiation scenarios where the consumers could value either firm’s product as better as or worse than the rival’s. (2) The firms may employ marketing activities that do not even lead to gains in consumer product valuation in expectation. The duopoly model analysis indicates that associated with strategic pricing, even such stochastic marketing activities may constitute desirable strategies for two a priori symmetric firms in order to avoid a Bertrand type competition as the benefit from differentiation is found to be significant enough to offset the unintended negative outcomes. The oligopoly model analysis indicates that there is an increased incentive to take marketing risk when there is a greater level of competitive intensity in the marketplace. Preliminary experimental evidence is presented to support the main findings from theoretical model analyses. The paper thus provides important managerial implications for firms contemplating investment in seemingly risky marketing activities.

     

Antecedents of Green Brand Equity: An Integrated Approach

A steady demand for green products from concerned consumers has led companies to introduce new product lines that match or exceed consumer environmental concerns. Nonetheless, not all the organizations were able to achieve significant returns on their investments in green products. These failures are generally attributed towards companies’ inability to overcome consumer scepticism towards the performance of functional and green attributes of their brands to generate a positive green image and green value in consumers mind. Therefore, the question arises that does the success in promoting green brand image and value depend on consumer existing perceptions about the brand quality and credibility? This study analyzes the influence of brand perceive quality and credibility on consumer perceptions towards a brand green image, green value and green equity. A theoretical model with hypothesized relationships is developed and tested to answer these research questions. Data have been collected from the consumers of electrical and electronic goods. The hypothesized relationships were tested with the help of structural equation modeling procedure. The results suggest that brand perceived quality and its overall credibility does have a significant influence on generating a greener image, green perceive value and green brand equity.     

The Effect of Product Innovation,Promotion, and Price on Consumer Switching to Private Labels

The channel conflict that exists between retailers and manufacturers of branded products has dynamically shifted as large retailers have expanded their offerings of private label products. This study investigates the ability of consumer packaged goods companies to exert influence in the channel by testing which marketing initiatives implemented by manufacturer brands are more efficient in preventing consumer switching to private labels. We use a hazard model to simultaneously measure the effects due to product innovation, promotion, and price on consumer switching and how strong those effects are. We find that as expected product innovation, promotion, and price exert a negative effect on the consumer likelihood of switching to private labels. However, we find the strongest effect on promotion suggesting the importance of understanding how consumers perceive value in the national brands offer.     

The Competitive Effects of Advertising in the US Automobile Industry, 1970‐94

Is advertising anticompetitive? One school of thought in industrial economics holds that advertising increases profits and reduces consumer welfare by creating spurious product differentiation and barriers to entry. Another school focuses on the informative character of advertising, claiming that advertising makes markets more competitive and reduces profits by supplying consumers with information about price and quality. We distinguish these views by examining the effect of advertising on competition in the US automobile industry. Our data include advertising, sales, profit, and market-share figures for General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler over a 25-year period from 1970 to 1994.We ask if advertising increases or decreases profitability, controlling for market structure and other factors affecting demand.Wefind that these firms cannot increase their profits above normal levels by increasing their advertising expenditures. This evidence supports the view that advertising serves primarily to transmit information, not to create entry barriers.     

A macroeconomic model of international price discrimination

This paper builds a baseline two-country model of real and monetary transmission in the presence of optimal international price discrimination by firms. Distributing traded goods to consumers requires nontradables, making the price elasticity of demand country-specific and a function of the exchange rate. Profit-maximizing monopolistic firms drive a wedge between prices across countries, optimally dampening the response of import and consumer prices to exchange-rate movements. We derive general equilibrium expressions for the pass-through into import and consumer prices, tracing the differential impact of real and monetary shocks on marginal cost and markup fluctuations through the exchange rate.     

Who pays for switching costs?

Earlier work characterized pricing with switching costs as a dilemma between a short-term “harvesting” incentive to increase prices versus a long-term “investing” incentive to decrease prices. This paper shows that small switching costs may reduce firm profits and provide short-term incentives to lower rather than raise prices. We provide a simple expression which characterizes the impact of the introduction of switching costs on prices and profits for a general model. We then explore the impact of switching costs in a variety of specific examples which are special cases of our model. We emphasize the importance of a short term “compensating” effect on switching costs. When consumers switch in equilibrium, firms offset the costs of consumers that are switching into the firm. If switching costs are low, this compensating effect of switching costs causes even myopic firms to decrease prices. The incentive to decrease prices is even stronger for forward looking firms.     

Authentic isn't always best: When inauthentic social media influencers induce positive consumer purchase intention through inspiration

This study explores whether and how varying levels of social media influencers (SMIs) personal authenticity affect consumer behavior in four experimental studies. Though consumers who perceive SMIs as being authentic express greater intention to purchase products endorsed by the SMIs, authenticity does not influence non-purchase behaviors. SMI authenticity also affects purchase intentions through trustworthiness and inspirational capacity. However, authenticity is not always necessary to influence consumer behavior. Inauthentic SMIs still can inspire consumers and positively influence their intentions to purchase hedonic products. These findings add value to existing literature and can inform effective SMI marketing strategies for various product categories.     

Pricing and persuasive advertising in a differentiated market

This paper examines the effects of consumer preferences, firms’ costs, and advertising efficiencies on firms’ pricing and persuasive advertising strategies. We show that as the firms’ horizontal differentiation increases, the firm with a lower value-added product tends to increase persuasive advertising, whereas its competitor tends to reduce advertising. Second, the firm receiving a favorable shock in product valuation will complement the favorable change with additional persuasive advertising rather than reduce advertising spending. Third, an equal improvement in advertising efficiency in the industry will lower the profits for both firms, whereas a decrease in advertising efficiency in the industry can benefit both firms. Fourth, a larger shock that improves a firm’s product valuation or unit cost is more likely to induce higher advertising spending in the industry. Lastly, an exogenous increase in the separation between firms’ product valuations or perceived qualities may actually reduce the price dispersion in the industry.     

Quality disclosure in the presence of strategic consumers

Consider a market for short-life products, such as smartphones, where a firm and consumers have asymmetric quality information, the firm sells products in two periods, and consumers make purchase decisions strategically. We investigate when a firm should disclose quality and the interaction between consumers' strategic behavior and the firm's disclosure behavior. We obtain several findings. First, regardless of whether consumers have low or high patience, the firm should disclose quality information if product quality is high and conceal it if product quality is low. However, for products with moderate quality levels, the firm will disclose more quality information to consumers with relatively high or low patience levels than when consumer patience is moderate. Second, firms will disclose less information when consumers behave strategically than when they are myopic. Third, when concealing quality information is an equilibrium, product prices are affected only by disclosure costs and independent of true product quality. Finally, the firm can benefit from consumers' strategic behavior and a higher disclosure cost, but greater patience might be detrimental to consumer surplus and social welfare.