IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v129y2021icp14-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When to switch between subscription-based and ad-sponsored business models: Strategic implications of decreasing content novelty

Author

Listed:
  • Huotari, Pontus
  • Ritala, Paavo

Abstract

Business model change is typically seen as an adaptation to market contextual changes or as experimentation to find the optimal model for a given context. We highlight an alternative rationale for business model change by showing formally that switching from a subscription-based to an ad-sponsored business model over time can generate more life cycle revenue (LCR) than committing to either business model in specific contextual conditions. This is because business model change involves an abrupt change in content consumption costs (i.e., “from fee to free”), facilitating intertemporal discrimination between heterogeneous consumers of content with decreasing novelty, which shortens the content life cycle and so limits LCR potential. These results have important implications for managing ad-sponsored digital content platforms in particular and illustrate the strategic viability of business model change in general.

Suggested Citation

  • Huotari, Pontus & Ritala, Paavo, 2021. "When to switch between subscription-based and ad-sponsored business models: Strategic implications of decreasing content novelty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 14-28.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:129:y:2021:i:c:p:14-28
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296321001272
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.02.037?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yiangos Papanastasiou & Nicos Savva, 2017. "Dynamic Pricing in the Presence of Social Learning and Strategic Consumers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(4), pages 919-939, April.
    2. Morris, Michael & Schindehutte, Minet & Allen, Jeffrey, 2005. "The entrepreneur's business model: toward a unified perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(6), pages 726-735, June.
    3. Caillaud, Bernard & Jullien, Bruno, 2003. "Chicken & Egg: Competition among Intermediation Service Providers," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 34(2), pages 309-328, Summer.
    4. Hagiu, Andrei & Wright, Julian, 2015. "Multi-sided platforms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 162-174.
    5. Christoph Zott & Raphael Amit, 2008. "The fit between product market strategy and business model: implications for firm performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 1-26, January.
    6. Harikesh Nair, 2007. "Intertemporal price discrimination with forward-looking consumers: Application to the US market for console video-games," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 239-292, September.
    7. Peitz, Martin & Valletti, Tommaso M., 2008. "Content and advertising in the media: Pay-tv versus free-to-air," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 949-965, July.
    8. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 990-1029, June.
    9. Gianvito Lanzolla & Constantinos Markides, 2021. "A Business Model View of Strategy," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 540-553, March.
    10. Tykkyläinen, Saila & Ritala, Paavo, 2021. "Business model innovation in social enterprises: An activity system perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 684-697.
    11. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell & Feng Zhu, 2010. "Strategies to Fight Ad-Sponsored Rivals," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(9), pages 1484-1499, September.
    12. Simon P. Anderson & Stephen Coate, 2005. "Market Provision of Broadcasting: A Welfare Analysis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(4), pages 947-972.
    13. Shi, Xiaohui & Li, Feng & Bigdeli, Ali Ziaee, 2016. "An examination of NPD models in the context of business models," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 2541-2550.
    14. Andrei Hagiu & Daniel Spulber, 2013. "First-Party Content and Coordination in Two-Sided Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 933-949, April.
    15. Rahul Kapoor & Shiva Agarwal, 2017. "Sustaining Superior Performance in Business Ecosystems: Evidence from Application Software Developers in the iOS and Android Smartphone Ecosystems," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 531-551, June.
    16. Eric Van den Steen, 2017. "A Formal Theory of Strategy," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(8), pages 2616-2636, August.
    17. Jean‐Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Two‐sided markets: a progress report," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, September.
    18. Geoffrey G. Parker & Marshall W. Van Alstyne, 2005. "Two-Sided Network Effects: A Theory of Information Product Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(10), pages 1494-1504, October.
    19. Rodolphe Durand & Robert M. Grant & Tammy L. Madsen & David P. McIntyre & Arati Srinivasan, 2017. "Networks, platforms, and strategy: Emerging views and next steps," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 141-160, January.
    20. Joost Rietveld & J. P. Eggers, 2018. "Demand Heterogeneity in Platform Markets: Implications for Complementors," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(2), pages 304-322, April.
    21. Battistella, Cinzia & De Toni, Alberto F. & De Zan, Giovanni & Pessot, Elena, 2017. "Cultivating business model agility through focused capabilities: A multiple case study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 65-82.
    22. Hirschman, Elizabeth C, 1980. "Innovativeness, Novelty Seeking, and Consumer Creativity," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 7(3), pages 283-295, December.
    23. Jeremy Bulow, 1986. "An Economic Theory of Planned Obsolescence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 101(4), pages 729-749.
    24. Nancy L. Stokey, 1979. "Intertemporal Price Discrimination," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(3), pages 355-371.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yang, Zhi & Cao, Xia & Wang, Feng & Lu, Chongyu, 2022. "Fortune or Prestige? The effects of content price on sales and customer satisfaction," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 426-435.
    2. Essen, Anna & Frishammar, Johan & Cenamor, Javier, 2023. "Entering non-platformized sectors: The Co-evolution of legitimacy debates and platform business models in digital health care," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    3. Jääskeläinen, Atte & Yanatma, Servet & Ritala, Paavo, 2021. "How does an incumbent news media organization become a platform? Employing intra-firm synergies to launch the platform business model in a news agency," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112560, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Mohit Tyagi & Nomesh B. Bolia, 2024. "Optimal pricing of subscription services in the restaurant industry," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(3), pages 262-273, June.
    5. Witold Torbacki, 2024. "A Framework for Assessing Innovations, Business Models and Sustainability for Software Companies Using Hybrid Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-25, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jingtao Yi & Jinqiu He & Lihong Yang, 2019. "Platform heterogeneity, platform governance and complementors’ product performance: an empirical study of the mobile application industry," Frontiers of Business Research in China, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 1-20, December.
    2. Bruno Jullien & Alessandro Pavan & Marc Rysman, 2021. "Two-sided markets, pricing, and network effects," Post-Print hal-03828345, HAL.
    3. Xing Wan & Javier Cenamor & Geoffrey Parker & Marshall Van Alstyne, 2017. "Unraveling Platform Strategies: A Review from an Organizational Ambidexterity Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-18, May.
    4. Carmelo Cennamo & Hakan Ozalp & Tobias Kretschmer, 2018. "Platform Architecture and Quality Trade-offs of Multihoming Complements," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(2), pages 461-478, June.
    5. Cinzia Battistella & Gianluca Murgia & Fabio Nonino, 2021. "Free-driven web-based business models," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 445-486, June.
    6. Esther Gal-Or & Ronen Gal-Or & Nabita Penmetsa, 2018. "The Role of User Privacy Concerns in Shaping Competition Among Platforms," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(3), pages 698-722, September.
    7. Marco Antonielli & Lapo Filistrucchi, 2011. "Collusion and the political differentiation of newspapers," Working Papers 11-26, NET Institute, revised Nov 2011.
    8. Burcu Tan & Edward G. Anderson, Jr. & Geoffrey G. Parker, 2020. "Platform Pricing and Investment to Drive Third-Party Value Creation in Two-Sided Networks," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(1), pages 217-239, March.
    9. Hagiu, Andrei & Jullien, Bruno, 2014. "Search diversion and platform competition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 48-60.
    10. Liu, He & Li, Xuerong & Wang, Shouyang, 2021. "A bibliometric analysis of 30 years of platform research: Developing the research agenda for platforms, the associated technologies and social impacts," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    11. Martin Peitz, 2023. "Governance and Regulation of Platforms," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_480, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    12. Behringer, Stefan & Filistrucchi, Lapo, 2015. "Hotelling competition and political differentiation with more than two newspapers," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 36-49.
    13. Junic Kim & Jaewook Yoo, 2019. "Platform Growth Model: The Four Stages of Growth Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-16, October.
    14. Nishikawa, Bruna T. & Orsato, Renato J., 2021. "Professional services in the age of platforms: Towards an analytical framework," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    15. Jacobides, Michael G. & Cennamo, Carmelo & Gawer, Annabelle, 2024. "Externalities and complementarities in platforms and ecosystems: From structural solutions to endogenous failures," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).
    16. Doh-Shin Jeon & Nikrooz Nasr, 2016. "News Aggregators and Competition among Newspapers on the Internet," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 91-114, November.
    17. Christian Stummer & Dennis Kundisch & Reinhold Decker, 2018. "Platform Launch Strategies," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 60(2), pages 167-173, April.
    18. Tang, Hua & Chen, Jing & Ai, Xingzheng & Li, Xiaojing & He, Haojia, 2023. "First-party content decision under competitive hardware/software platforms: Free vs. charge," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 311(3), pages 1068-1083.
    19. Martin Peitz, 2024. "The Economic Theory of Two-Sided Platforms," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_584, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    20. Yuki Inoue & Masataka Hashimoto & Takeshi Takenaka, 2019. "Effectiveness of Ecosystem Strategies for the Sustainability of Marketplace Platform Ecosystems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-33, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:129:y:2021:i:c:p:14-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.