Raising Awareness and Signaling Quality to Uninformed Consumers: A Price-Advertising Model
Raising Awareness and Signaling Quality to Uninformed Consumers: A Price-Advertising Model
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DOI：
10.1287/mksc.19.4.390.11788
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发表时间：
2000-10
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Hao Zhao
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hao Zhao
本文的目的是研究企业在推出新产品时的最优广告和定价策略。我们通过构建一个模型来扩展现有的关于广告支出和价格的信号传递文献，在该模型中，广告既被用来提高对产品的认识，又被用来表示其质量。通过比较完全信息博弈和不完全信息博弈，我们发现，高质量企业会在各自的完全信息水平上减少广告支出，提高价格。在分离均衡中，高质量企业的广告支出实际上会低于低质量企业，导致产品质量与广告支出之间存在负相关关系。与以往研究不同的是，我们认为广告支出不仅是一种信号手段，也是一种信息手段。当广告支出只是一种信号装置时，它纯粹是一种消散性支出。它可以是一个有效的质量信号，因为只有高质量的公司才能负担得起；因此，消费者可以通过其广告支出来推断产品的质量。在这种情况下，广告支出与产品质量呈正相关。然而，当广告也起到提高知名度的目的时，它会使公司的市场规模内生化，因此它不再只是一种消耗性支出。考虑到这种情况下低质量公司的模仿策略。当低质量的公司被认为是高质量的公司时，它可能会收取比知道其真实质量的价格高得多的价格。鉴于它的边际成本低于高质量公司，它在模仿方面的利润率将远远高于揭示其真实质量的利润率。事实上，它的利润率将比高质量公司更大。因此，当知道其真实质量时，低质量公司有强烈的动机增加其最优水平的广告支出。为了阻止低质量公司的模仿倾向，高质量公司应该减少广告支出，使模仿对低质量公司的吸引力不如揭示其真实质量。事实上，这家高质量的公司应该大幅减少广告支出，使其广告投放少于处于均衡状态的低质量公司。许多公司将信号解读为“烧钱”或“浪费钱”。在广告的情况下，声称它的目的只是向消费者表明，该公司有能力在广告上挥霍资金，以表明其质量。因此，广告内容不必是信息性的。然而，我们的研究结果表明，仅仅“烧钱”并不足以表明产品的质量。钱是如何烧掉的也很重要。当广告在提高知名度的同时发出质量信号时，“省钱”而不是“烧钱”才是正确的信号传递方式，尽管最终这家高质量的公司将通过缩小市场规模来牺牲一些利润。这一结果背后的直觉是，当信息不完全时，高质量的企业无法充分利用其优势。当公司在质量和/或边际成本方面的优势减弱时，它就会想要减少在广告上的支出。
The objective of this paper is to investigate the firm's optimal advertising and pricing strategies when introducing a new product. We extend the existing signaling literature on advertising spending and price by constructing a model in which advertising is used both to raise awareness about the product and to signal its quality. By comparing the complete information game and the incomplete information game, we find that the high-quality firm will reduce advertising spending and increase price from their respective complete information levels. In the separating equilibrium, the high-quality firm will actually spend less on advertising than the low-quality firm, resulting in a negative correlation between product quality and advertising spending.What sets our analysis apart from previous studies is that we consider advertising spending not only as a signaling device but also as an informational device. When advertising spending is just a signaling device, it is purely a dissipative expense. It can be an effective signal of quality because only the high-quality firm can afford it; thus, consumers can infer the product's quality by its advertising spending. In this case, advertising spending and product quality are positively correlated. However, when advertising also serves the purpose of raising awareness, it endogenizes the size of the market for the firm, so it is not just a dissipative expense any more.Consider the low-quality firm's mimicking strategy in this case. When the low-quality firm is believed to be a highquality one, it can charge a much higher price than if its true quality were known. Given that its marginal cost is lower than the high-quality firm's, its profit margin will be much larger in mimicry than in revealing its true quality. Indeed, its profit margin will be even greater than the high-quality firm's. Therefore, the low-quality firm in mimicry has a strong incentive to increase its advertising spending from its optimal level when its true quality is known. To deter the low-quality firm's mimicking tendency, the high-quality firm should decrease its advertising spending so that mimicry is not as appealing to the low-quality firm as revealing its true quality. Indeed, the high-quality firm should reduce its advertising spending so much that it advertises less than the low-quality firm in equilibriumMany have interpreted signaling as "burning money" or "throwing money down the drain." In the case of advertising, the claim is that its purpose is simply to show consumers that the firm can afford to squander money on advertising to signal its quality. Hence, the advertising content need not be informative. However, our results show that simply "burning money" is not enough to signal quality. How the money is burned is also important. When advertising raises awareness as well as signals quality, "saving money" rather than "burning money" is the correct signaling approach, although ultimately the high-quality firm will sacrifice some profit by reducing its market size. The intuition behind this result is that when information is incomplete, the high-quality firm cannot fully exploit its advantages. Whenever its advantages in quality and/or marginal costs are lessened, a firm will want to spend less on advertising.