Advertising decisions for a segmented market

We consider the problem of choosing the levels of a set of advertising media in order to maximize the firm profit when the market is heterogeneous. Advertising efforts affect the demand of the different segments variably and we assume that the advertising effects on demand over time are mediated by a vector goodwill variable. A first general advertising decision problem is stated and solved in the non-linear programming framework. A preference index is then obtained for the medium selection problem when each segment demand function is linear in goodwill and each medium advertising cost function is quadratic in its level. Finally the theoretical case of disjoint advertising media is discussed.     

Channel Coordination with Cooperative Advertising Considering Effect of Advertising on Willingness to Pay

In this paper, cooperative advertising in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain is studied. Advertising can enhance willingness to pay (WTP) of customers. This trade-off between the benefits of increasing WTP of customers and the advertising expenditure is a key to understanding the retailers optimal advertising decision. On the other hand, it is interesting to understand in which condition supporting the retailer for his advertising expenditure is beneficial for the manufacturer. In this study, in order to capture pricing and advertising strategies of the channel member, three non-cooperative games including Nash, Stackelberg retailer and Stackelberg manufacturer game-theoretic models are established. In spite of the related studies which restrict price in order to prevent negative demand, the proposed model allows channel members to increase their prices by enhancing WTP of customers. In this study, contrary to similar additive form demand functions applied in the co-op ad literature which limits their studies for cases that profit function is concave with respect to variables, optimal prices and advertising strategies are obtained for all the solution space. Surprisingly for the very high values of the advertising effect coefficient, a finite optimal advertising expenditure is achieved.     

Advertising Response Functions and Media Planning

In the first part of this paper the definition and use of advertising response functions are examined critically. It is shown that advertising response functions cannot be regarded as models of the advertising process whose parameters are known, that only a small section of the complex functions often postulated is relevant to media planning, that measures of advertising impacts or exposures are relative rather than absolute, and consequently that the “response function” only shows a notional relationship between advertising response and exposure, which normally needs to be calibrated to the advertising appropriation.In the second part a media planning system which utilizes a “control parameter” rather than a “response function” is described. The main feature of the “control parameter” is that it adapts itself so that an appropriate relationship between response and exposure is used, whatever the appropriation. Other features of the system are described.     

Optimal Goodwill Path to Introduce a New Product

We consider the problem of determining an optimal goodwill path for the introduction of a new product in a market, while looking for the maximum foreseen profit. The foreseen revenue depends on the product introduction time and on the goodwill level at the same time. We focus on the advertising costs associated with the goodwill evolution and assume that the cost function possesses some rather general features which are shared by the cost functions of the Nerlove-Arrow type models. The dynamic optimization problem is discussed in the calculus of variations framework. A few examples associated with special cost functions are discussed in detail.     

制造商与渠道势力不对称零售商的合作广告模型研究

研究制造商与渠道势力不对称零售商的合作广告问题.在需求不确定的情况下,建立了制造商和零售商的分散式与集中式系统下的合作广告模型,得到了不同系统下制造商和强势零售商的最优合作广告策略、强势零售商和边缘零售商的最优订货策略,及他们的最优期望利润.通过对不同系统下均衡结果的比较分析,证明了分散式系统存在不协调.设计了实现渠道协调的联合契约,指出分散式协调系统下的联合契约不唯一,契约参数两两正相关,广告补贴率、产品批发价格和回购价格是制造商和强势零售商力量平衡的焦点.     

Coordination of cooperative advertising in a two-level supply chain when manufacturer offers discount

We studied the coordination of cooperative advertisement in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain when the manufacturer offers price deductions to customers. With a price sensitive market, the expected demand with cooperative advertising and price deduction is demonstrated. When the manufacturer is a leader, we obtained the optimal national brand name investment, local advertisement and associated manufacturer’s allowance with any given price deduction. When the manufacturer offers more price deduction to customers, the retailer will increase local advertisement if the manufacturer provides the same portion of the local advertising allowance. We obtained the necessary and sufficient condition for the price deduction to ensure an increase of manufacturer’s profit, and a search procedure for determining such an optimal price deduction is provided as well. When the manufacturer and retailer are partners, we obtained the optimal national brand name investment and local advertisement. For any given price deduction, the total profit for the supply chain with cooperative scheme is always higher than that with the non-cooperative scheme. When price elasticity of demand is larger than one, the resulting closed form optimal price deduction with partnership is also obtained. To increase profits for both parties in a supply chain, we recommend that coordination in local and national cooperative advertising with a partnership relationship between manufacturer and retailer is the best solution. The bargaining results show how to share the profit gain between the manufacturer and the retailer, and determine the associated pricing and advertising policies for both parties.     

Pure-strategy Nash equilibria in an advertising game with interference

Two manufacturers produce substitutable goods for a homogeneous market. The advertising efforts of the two manufacturers determine the demand for the goods and interfere negatively with each other. The demand of each good is a piecewise linear function of the product goodwill, and the latter is a linear function of advertising efforts. In a game with two competing profit-maximizing manufacturers who have access to a set of several advertising media, the pure-strategy Nash equilibria are characterized and their existence is shown.     

Signaling Quality: Dynamic Price-Advertising Model

This paper extends the existing quality-signaling literature by investigating the roles of price and advertising levels as quality indicators in a dynamic framework. Considering perceived quality as a form of goodwill, we modify the well-known Nerlove-Arrow dynamic model to include price effects. In our model, price is used both as a monetary constraint and as a signal of quality, while advertising spending is used only as a signaling device, and thus purely as a dissipative expense. Utilizing optimal control, we determine optimal decision rules for a firm regarding both price and advertising over time as functions of perceived quality. The results indicate that, when prices act as monetary constraints and are reduced to increase demand, the firm should use the signaling role of advertising by increasing spending to accelerate perceived quality increases. In cases when the value of the perceived quality goes up together with the increase in the perceived quality by more than the demand, in percentage terms, the firm should increase the price (use its signaling role). At steady-state, we find that the level of optimal profit margin relative to price decreases with the elasticity of demand with respect to the brand price. However, higher elasticity of demand with respect to the firm’s perceived quality and/or a higher impact of price (advertising) lead/leads to a higher optimal profit margin (advertising spending) relative to price (revenue).     

不同决策模式下的双渠道供应链合作广告博弈分析

本文研究了双渠道供应链中非合作广告模式、合作广告模式和战略联盟模式下的合作广告问题,给出了不同决策模式下的均衡解。对比分析发现:战略联盟模式中品牌广告和零售商广告投入水平最高,网络广告投入水平最低且零售渠道的产品需求最高。合作广告模式和战略联盟模式中的系统收益与广告比率负相关,与产品网络适应度正相关。     

An advertising game with multiplicative interference

Two competing manufacturers provide a homogeneous market with substitutable products and want to maximize their profits. Each firm may advertise its brand, with a positive effect on its own brand and negative on the competitor's one. Moreover, each firm may choose an advertising medium to use among several available media. We assume that the advertising effect on demand is mediated by the goodwill variable and that a competitor's interference may be represented as a proportional reduction of the virtual goodwill. We model the manufacturers' problem as a noncooperative game under complete information and discuss the existence and features of its Nash equilibria.     

风险中性零售商的合作广告策略与订货模型

考虑了由一个制造商与一个零售商构成的单期二阶段供应链是否进行合作广告的博弈问题.面对市场需求的不确定性,零售商从制造商处订购报童类型产品销售给消费者,零售商具有风险中性的行为特征.通过不合作广告与合作广告两种情形,制造商与零售商进Stackelberg主从博弈,得到了均衡解,比较后发现,合作广告下的最优解及利润总是优于不合作广告下的最优解和利润,告诉了上下游企业采用合作广告的广告策略.最后,通过数值算例,给出了需求敏感系数对最优决策的影响,同时也论证了有关结论.     

Using mixture‐amount modeling to optimize the advertising media mix and quantify cross‐media synergy for specific target groups

One of the critical decisions in media planning is how to allocate advertising efforts across different media. While studies indicate that marketers can create positive synergy effects by spreading their effort across several media, there is little understanding of how much should be invested in each specific medium to optimize advertising results. In this study, we apply a novel methodology, mixture‐amount modeling, which allows advertisers to determine the optimal allocation of advertising effort across media as a function of the total advertising effort. Moreover, we test how the optimal allocation and the resulting response change for consumers with distinctive media usage patterns and varying degrees of product category experience. Based on these results, we quantify the potential synergy between media and calculate the synergistic capacity for specific target groups. We apply the model to data from 52 beauty care advertising campaigns that ran on TV and in magazines in the Netherlands and Belgium. We determine the optimal allocation of advertising investments (measured through Gross Rating Points) to maximize campaign recognition. Our findings support the existence of positive synergistic effects between magazine and TV advertising and illustrate that these effects depend on consumers' media usage and product category experience.     

Specification and estimation of primal production models

While estimating production technology in a primal framework production function, input and output distance functions and input requirement functions are widely used in the empirical literature. This paper shows that these popular primal based models are algebraically equivalent in the sense that they can be derived from the same underlying transformation (production possibility) function. By assuming that producers maximize profit, we show that in all cases, except one, the use of ordinary least squares (OLS) gives inconsistent estimates irrespective of whether the production, input distance and input requirement functions are used. Based on several specifications of the production and input distance function models, we conclude that one can estimate the input elasticities and returns to scale consistently using instruments on only one regressor. No instruments are needed if either it is assumed that producers know the technology entirely (including the so-called error term) or a system approach is used. We used Norwegian timber harvesting data to illustrate workings of various model specifications.     

National and store brand advertising strategies

As the propensity of premium store brands (SBs) increases, retailers must consider different ways to drive sales besides promotional strategies. With this in mind, we consider a national brand (NB) and a (premium) SB co-existing in a market. Each brand has to decide the amount to invest in advertising its product and the prices to charge its customers, which can be determined separately or in unison. When either advertising expenditures or pricing decisions are set, each brand must keep in mind that the advertising efforts and revenue may spillover between the two brands, customers who intend to purchase the NB may end up purchasing the SB and vice versa. We derive an analytical model of the situations described and characterize equilibrium advertising decisions. We find that the characteristics of a premium SB may depend on which marketing/promoting instrument (advertising or pricing) is the primary method for driving demand; and in some situations an NB may be better off to not advertise at all and instead let the premium SB carry out all of the advertising.     

Multistage multiproduct advertising budgeting

We propose and analyze an effective model for the Multistage Multiproduct Advertising Budgeting problem. This model optimizes the advertising investment for several products, by considering cross elasticities, different sales drivers and the whole planning horizon. We derive a simple procedure to compute the optimal advertising budget and its optimal allocation. The model was tested to plan a realistic advertising campaign. We observed that the multistage approach may significantly increase the advertising profit, compared to the successive application of the single stage approach.     

Cooperative advertising in a distribution channel with fairness concerns

Cooperative (co-op) advertising has been widely used in practice and employed as a strategy to improve the performance of a distribution channel. It is known from the existing models that co-op advertising could not achieve the channel coordination (i.e., maximize the total channel profit). In this paper, we consider a distribution channel consisting of a single manufacturer and a single retailer, and investigate the effect of the retailer’s fairness concerns. Applying the equilibrium analysis, we obtain the following results: (1) Channel coordination can be achieved if the retailer has fairness concerns and model parameters satisfy certain conditions. (2) Although both channel members become better off with co-op advertising if neither channel member has fairness concerns, we find situations where co-op advertising brings detrimental effects to the retailer if the retailer has fairness concerns. (3) The retailer’s fairness concerns may increase or decrease the equilibrium participation rate, the equilibrium advertising effort, and the equilibrium profit of the manufacturer and the whole channel. (4) We identify the conditions under which the effectiveness of co-op advertising can be improved or reduced by the retailer’s fairness concerns. As long as co-op advertising can bring extra profit to the manufacturer, the retailer’s fairness concerns could improve the effectiveness of the co-op advertising. (5) There exists a Pareto improvement for the profits of both the manufacturer and the retailer when a retailer without fairness concerns becomes fair-minded.     

A game theoretic approach to coordinate pricing and vertical co-op advertising in manufacturer-retailer supply chains

Vertical cooperative (co-op) advertising is a marketing strategy in which the retailer runs local advertising and the manufacturer pays for a portion of its entire costs. This paper considers vertical co-op advertising along with pricing decisions in a supply chain; this consists of one manufacturer and one retailer where demand is influenced by both price and advertisement. Four game-theoretic models are established in order to study the effect of supply chain power balance on the optimal decisions of supply chain members. Comparisons and insights are developed. These embrace three non-cooperative games including Nash, Stackelberg-manufacturer and Stackelberg-retailer, and one cooperative game. In the latter case, both the manufacturer and the retailer reach the highest profit level; subsequently, the feasibility of bargaining game is discussed in a bid to determine a scheme to share the extra joint profit.     

The effect of demand uncertainty in a price-setting newsvendor model

We study the effects of demand uncertainty on optimal decisions and the expected profit of a price-setting newsvendor who faces either additive or multiplicative stochastic demand. Our key findings are as follows. (1) A stochastically larger demand may even lead to a smaller order size and a lower profit when price is endogenous. (2) A stochastically larger demand will lead to a higher selling price in general for the additive demand case but to a lower selling price under certain mild conditions for the multiplicative demand case. Moreover, if the larger demand can be represented by a transformation of the lower one, it will lead to a higher expected profit for both demand cases. However, except for the setting with a zero shortage cost, a larger demand may not necessarily result in a higher expected profit in general. (3) Under mild conditions, a less variable demand will lead to a higher and lower selling price for the additive and multiplicative demand case, respectively, and a higher expected profit for both cases.     

Vertical cooperative advertising and pricing decisions in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain: A game-theoretic approach

Manufacturers can increase the advertising expenditures of their retailers by bearing a fraction of the occurring costs within the framework of a vertical cooperative advertising program. We expand the existing research which deals with advertising and pricing decisions in a manufacturer–retailer supply chain contemporaneously. By means of game theory, four different relationships between the channel members are considered: Firstly, three non-cooperative games with either symmetrical distribution of power or asymmetrical distribution with one player being the leader in each case, and one cooperative game where both players tend to maximize the total profit. The latter is complemented by a bargaining model, which proposes a fair split of profit on the basis of the players’ risk attitude and bargaining power. Our main findings are as follows: (a) In contrast to previous analyses, we do not limit the ratio between manufacturer’s and retailer’s margin, which provides more general insights into the effects of the underlying distribution of power within the channel. (b) The highest total profit is gained when both players cooperate. This behavior puts also the customers in a better position, as it produces the lowest retail price as well as the highest advertising expenditures compared to the other configurations.     

Effect of price elasticity of demand in monopolies with gradient adjustment

We study a monopolistic market characterized by a constant elasticity demand function, in which the firm technology is described by a linear total cost function. The firm is assumed to be boundedly rational and to follow a gradient rule to adjust the production level in order to optimize its profit. We focus on what happens on varying the price elasticity of demand, studying the effect on the equilibrium stability. We prove that, depending on the relation between the market size and the marginal cost, two different scenarios are possible, in which elasticity has either a stabilizing or a mixed stabilizing/destabilizing effect.