- 期刊
獨佔廠商品牌形象與最適產品線延伸策略
Building Brand Image for a Monopoly via Optimal Sequential Product Line Extension Strategies
摘要
本文探討當生產耐久財之獨佔廠商面對消費者策略性購買行為時的最適產品線延伸與動態價格策略。本研究中廠商有兩種可能的型態：高技術或是低技術，此為廠商的私人資料，消費者無法確知。廠商每一期可以決定生產低端產品或是額外投入研發成本以生產高端產品(高技術廠商生產此依產品的品質較高，而且早期有研發優勢)，由於相關技術的成熟，高端產品的研發成本將隨著時間遞減。另一方面，消費者對於高端產品的偏好有高有低。廠商無法確知。即廠商處於一個雙向資訊不對稱的行銷環境，因而廠商產品或價格策略必須肩負區隔市場與傳遞技術水準訊息的雙重任務。研究發現當消費者可以確知廠商的技術水準時，廠商的產品線延伸方向必是向上延伸，即先生產品低端產品，而後再延伸高端產品，此實生產具有效率性。然而在雙向資訊不對稱的行銷環境下，存在著高技術廠商採取向下延伸，低技術廠商採取向上延伸的均衡，此時廠商的產品策略成功的傳遞了廠商的技術水準訊息(高技術廠商雖放棄了研發成本的節省，但卻獲致較佳的品牌形象)。本研究中亦存在行銷環境使得高技術廠商無法藉由產品策略證明自己，但卻仍可藉由高端產品價格傳訊技術水準訊息的均衡。最後，本研究透過賽局理論的分析也使我們對於許多重要行銷議題如動態差別取價、新產品擴散、企業多角化策略等提供嶄新的詮釋。
並列摘要
This paper derives the optimal product line extension and dynamic pricing policies for a durable good monopoly facing consumers’ strategic buying behavior. The firm can be of either the hi-tech type or the low-tech type, which consumers cannot tell, and in each period the firm can either produce a low-end item or spend on R&D to develop a high-end item (of which the quality is higher and the associated R&D expenditure- is lower if the firm is of the hi-tech type. Due to technological progress, the R&D cost of developing the high-end item is assumed to decline over ‘time. On the other hand, a consumer may attach either a high or a low value to the high-end item, which the firm cannot tell. Thus we are considering a marketing environment with two-sided information asymmetry, where the firm’s product and pricing strategies must assume both the screening and signaling roles. We show that when the firm’s type is public; information, the firm always adopts an upward product extension policy, meaning that it will always produce a low-end item before a high-tend item. This policy attains productive efficiency. With the two-sided information, asymmetry, however, in certain marketing environment this model has a perfect Bayesian equilibrium where the hi-tech and the low-tech firms adopt respectively a downward and an upward product extension policies in an early period, so that the firm’s product strategy resolves the consumers’ uncertainty about the firm’s technological capability. In this equilibrium, the hi-tech type in developing the high-end item in an early period bears an unusually high R&D cost, but by separating itself from the low-tech type it gains from an immediate rise in its brand image. We also identify a set of marketing environments where the firm’s product extension policy fails to signal the firm’s type, but its pricing policy does. Our game-theoretic approach proves useful .in producing new insights regarding such important marketing issues as dynamic price discrimination, new product diffusion, and conglomerate diversification.