IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormksc/v23y2004i1p134-145.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer Learning, Brand Loyalty, and Competition

Author

Listed:
  • J. Miguel Villas-Boas

    (Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-1900)

Abstract

In several markets, consumers can gain further information regarding how well a product fits their preferences only by experiencing it after purchase. This could then generate loyalty for the products tried first. This paper considers a model in which consumers learn in the first period about the product they buy and then make choices in the second period about the competing products, given what they learned in the first period. The paper finds that if the distribution of valuations for each product is negatively (positively) skewed, a firm benefits (is hurt) in the future from having a greater market share today—the brand loyalty characteristic. With negative skewness, two effects are identified: On one hand, marginal forward-looking consumers are less price sensitive than myopic consumers, and this is a force toward higher prices. On the other hand, forward-looking firms realize that they gain in the future from having a higher market share in the current period and compete more aggressively in prices. For similar discount factors for consumers and firms, the latter effect dominates. The paper also characterizes the importance of consumer learning effects on the market outcome.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2004. "Consumer Learning, Brand Loyalty, and Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(1), pages 134-145, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:23:y:2004:i:1:p:134-145
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.1030.0044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1030.0044
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mksc.1030.0044?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James M. Lattin, 1987. "A Model of Balanced Choice Behavior," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 48-65.
    2. Peter J. Danaher & Isaac W. Wilson & Robert A. Davis, 2003. "A Comparison of Online and Offline Consumer Brand Loyalty," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 461-476, February.
    3. Byung-Do Kim & Mengze Shi & Kannan Srinivasan, 2001. "Reward Programs and Tacit Collusion," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(2), pages 99-120, June.
    4. Paul Klemperer, 1995. "Competition when Consumers have Switching Costs: An Overview with Applications to Industrial Organization, Macroeconomics, and International Trade," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 62(4), pages 515-539.
    5. Nitin Mehta & Surendra Rajiv & Kannan Srinivasan, 2003. "Price Uncertainty and Consumer Search: A Structural Model of Consideration Set Formation," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 58-84, June.
    6. Rishin Roy & Pradeep K. Chintagunta & Sudeep Haldar, 1996. "A Framework for Investigating Habits, “The Hand of the Past,” and Heterogeneity in Dynamic Brand Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(3), pages 280-299.
    7. Bergemann, Dirk & Valimaki, Juuso, 1996. "Learning and Strategic Pricing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1125-1149, September.
    8. Schmalensee, Richard, 1982. "Product Differentiation Advantages of Pioneering Brands," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(3), pages 349-365, June.
    9. Ajay Kalra & Surendra Rajiv & Kannan Srinivasan, 1998. "Response to Competitive Entry: A Rationale for Delayed Defensive Reaction," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 380-405.
    10. Ganesh Iyer & David Soberman, 2000. "Markets for Product Modification Information," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(3), pages 203-225, February.
    11. Randolph E. Bucklin & James M. Lattin, 1991. "A Two-State Model of Purchase Incidence and Brand Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(1), pages 24-39.
    12. Lakshman Krishnamurthi & S. P. Raj, 1991. "An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship Between Brand Loyalty and Consumer Price Elasticity," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 172-183.
    13. Gurumurthy Kalyanaram & Glen L. Urban, 1992. "Dynamic Effects of the Order of Entry on Market Share, Trial Penetration, and Repeat Purchases for Frequently Purchased Consumer Goods," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(3), pages 235-250.
    14. Peter M. Guadagni & John D. C. Little, 1983. "A Logit Model of Brand Choice Calibrated on Scanner Data," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(3), pages 203-238.
    15. Preyas S. Desai, 2000. "Multiple Messages to Retain Retailers: Signaling New Product Demand," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(4), pages 381-389, August.
    16. James H. Pedrick & Fred S. Zufryden, 1991. "Evaluating the Impact of Advertising Media Plans: A Model of Consumer Purchase Dynamics Using Single-Source Data," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 111-130.
    17. Birger Wernerfelt, 1991. "Brand Loyalty and Market Equilibrium," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 229-245.
    18. Sridhar Moorthy & Kannan Srinivasan, 1995. "Signaling Quality with a Money-Back Guarantee: The Role of Transaction Costs," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 14(4), pages 442-466.
    19. Purushottam Papatla & Lakshman Krishnamurthi, 1992. "A Probit Model of Choice Dynamics," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 11(2), pages 189-206.
    20. Peter S. Fader & James M. Lattin, 1993. "Accounting for Heterogeneity and Nonstationarity in a Cross-Sectional Model of Consumer Purchase Behavior," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(3), pages 304-317.
    21. Caminal, Ramon & Matutes, Carmen, 1990. "Endogenous switching costs in a duopoly model," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 353-373, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Onesun Steve Yoo & Rakesh Sarin, 2018. "Consumer Choice and Market Outcomes Under Ambiguity in Product Quality," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(3), pages 445-468, May.
    2. Baltas, George & Doyle, Peter, 2001. "Random utility models in marketing research: a survey," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 115-125, February.
    3. Miguel Villas-Boas, J., 2015. "A short survey on switching costs and dynamic competition," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 219-222.
    4. P. B. Seetharaman & Hai Che, 2009. "Price Competition in Markets with Consumer Variety Seeking," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 516-525, 05-06.
    5. J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2000. "Competing with Experience Goods," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0771, Econometric Society.
    6. Nitin Mehta & Surendra Rajiv & Kannan Srinivasan, 2003. "Price Uncertainty and Consumer Search: A Structural Model of Consideration Set Formation," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 58-84, June.
    7. Steven M. Shugan, 2005. "Brand Loyalty Programs: Are They Shams?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 185-193.
    8. Siddharth S. Singh & Dipak C. Jain & Trichy V. Krishnan, 2008. "Research Note--Customer Loyalty Programs: Are They Profitable?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(6), pages 1205-1211, June.
    9. Richards, Timothy J., 2000. "The Impact Of Promotion And Advertising: A Latent Class Approach," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 32(3), pages 1-17, December.
    10. Richards, Timothy J. & Patterson, Paul M., 1999. "The Impact Of Promotion And Advertising On Choice Of Fruit Category And Apple Variety: A Latent-Class Approach," 1999 Annual meeting, August 8-11, Nashville, TN 21627, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Moon, Sangkil & Voss, Glenn, 2009. "How do price range shoppers differ from reference price point shoppers?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 31-38, January.
    12. Dmitri Kuksov & Kangkang Wang, 2013. "A Model of the "It" Products in Fashion," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(1), pages 51-69, July.
    13. Jiwoong Shin & K. Sudhir, 2010. "A Customer Management Dilemma: When Is It Profitable to Reward One's Own Customers?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 671-689, 07-08.
    14. Bazargan, Amirhossein & Karray, Salma & Zolfaghari, Saeed, 2017. "Modeling reward expiry for loyalty programs in a competitive market," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C), pages 352-364.
    15. A. Yeşim Orhun & Tong Guo & Andreas Hagemann, 2022. "Reaching for Gold: Frequent-Flyer Status Incentives and Moral Hazard," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(3), pages 548-574, May.
    16. Sergi Jiménez-Martín & Antonio Ladrón de Guevara-Martínez, 2009. "A state-dependent model of hybrid behavior with rational consumers in the attribute space," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 33(3), pages 347-383, September.
    17. Morten Overgaard Ravn & Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe & Martin Uribe, 2010. "Incomplete Cost Pass-Through Under Deep Habits," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(2), pages 317-332, April.
    18. Jie Zhang & Lakshman Krishnamurthi, 2004. "Customizing Promotions in Online Stores," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(4), pages 561-578, June.
    19. de Jong, Gerben & Behrens, Christiaan & van Ommeren, Jos, 2019. "Airline loyalty (programs) across borders: A geographic discontinuity approach," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 251-272.
    20. Ajay Kalra & Shibo Li, 2008. "Signaling Quality Through Specialization," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 168-184, 03-04.

    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:inm:ormksc:v:23:y:2004:i:1:p:134-145. 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: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    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.