IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormksc/v28y2009i1p87-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Going Where the Ad Leads You: On High Advertised Prices and Searching Where to Buy

Author

Listed:
  • Maarten C. W. Janssen

    (Department of Economics, University of Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria, and Department of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Marielle C. Non

    (Tinbergen Institute, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and University of Groningen, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands)

Abstract

An important role of informative advertising is to inform consumers of the simple fact that the shop that advertises sells a particular product. This information may help consumers to save on their search activities: instead of wandering around, a consumer can simply visit the shop that has advertised, knowing that there he can find the commodity he is looking for. The implications of this simple fact have not been studied before. Using game theoretic reasoning in a model that combines consumer search and firms' advertising we show that firms may find it optimal to advertise prices that are higher than nonadvertised prices. The important mechanism underlying this result is that advertising lowers the expected search cost for consumers. Through this analysis we provide a new insight into the role of informative advertising.

Suggested Citation

  • Maarten C. W. Janssen & Marielle C. Non, 2009. "Going Where the Ad Leads You: On High Advertised Prices and Searching Where to Buy," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(1), pages 87-98, 01-02.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:28:y:2009:i:1:p:87-98
    DOI: 10.1287/mksc.1080.0377
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mksc.1080.0377
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mksc.1080.0377?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. C. Robert Clark, 2007. "Advertising Restrictions and Competition in the Children’s Breakfast Cereal Industry," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 50(4), pages 757-780.
    2. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    3. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13240 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Ganesh Iyer & Amit Pazgal, 2003. "Internet Shopping Agents: Virtual Co-Location and Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 85-106, November.
    5. Janssen, Maarten C.W. & Non, Marielle C., 2008. "Advertising and consumer search in a duopoly model," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 354-371, January.
    6. Meurer, Michael & Stahl, Dale II, 1994. "Informative advertising and product match," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-19, March.
    7. Ganesh Iyer, 1998. "Coordinating Channels Under Price and Nonprice Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 338-355.
    8. Yuxin Chen & K. Sudhir, 2004. "When Shopbots Meet Emails: Implications for Price Competition on the Internet," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 233-255, September.
    9. Chuan He & Yuxin Chen, 2006. "Research Note—Managing e-Marketplace: A Strategic Analysis of Nonprice Advertising," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(2), pages 175-187, 03-04.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13239 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. David A. Soberman, 2004. "Research Note: Additional Learning and Implications on the Role of Informative Advertising," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(12), pages 1744-1750, December.
    12. Ram C. Rao & Niladri Syam, 2001. "Equilibrium Price Communication and Unadvertised Specials by Competing Supermarkets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 61-81, June.
    13. Stahl II Dale O., 1994. "Oligopolistic Pricing and Advertising," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 162-177, October.
    14. Koen Pauwels & Dominique M. Hanssens, 2007. "Performance Regimes and Marketing Policy Shifts," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 293-311, 05-06.
    15. Stivers, Andrew & Tremblay, Victor J., 2005. "Advertising, search costs, and social welfare," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 317-333, July.
    16. Diamond, Peter A., 1971. "A model of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 156-168, June.
    17. Brousseau,Eric & Curien,Nicolas (ed.), 2007. "Internet and Digital Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521855914, November.
    18. Peter J. Danaher, 2007. "Modeling Page Views Across Multiple Websites with an Application to Internet Reach and Frequency Prediction," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(3), pages 422-437, 05-06.
    19. Frank M. Bass & Norris Bruce & Sumit Majumdar & B. P. S. Murthi, 2007. "Wearout Effects of Different Advertising Themes: A Dynamic Bayesian Model of the Advertising-Sales Relationship," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(2), pages 179-195, 03-04.
    20. Ganesh Iyer & Amit Pazgal, 2003. "Erratum: Internet Shopping Agents: Virtual Co-Location and Competition," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 271-271, November.
    21. Gerard R. Butters, 1977. "Equilibrium Distributions of Sales and Advertising Prices," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 465-491.
    22. Robert, Jacques & Stahl, Dale O, II, 1993. "Informative Price Advertising in a Sequential Search Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 657-686, May.
    23. Stahl, Dale O, II, 1989. "Oligopolistic Pricing with Sequential Consumer Search," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 700-712, September.
    24. Maarten C.W. Janssen & Marielle C. Non, 2006. "Going where the Ad leads you: On High Advertised Prices and Search where to buy," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-075/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    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. Xingyue Zhang & Yuliang Yao, 2020. "How Much is Too Much? The Effect of Offline Call Intensity on Online Purchase of Digital Services," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(3), pages 509-525, March.
    2. Dmitri Kuksov & Ashutosh Prasad & Mohammad Zia, 2017. "In-Store Advertising by Competitors," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 402-425, May.
    3. Jeffrey D. Shulman & Xianjun Geng, 2013. "Add-on Pricing by Asymmetric Firms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(4), pages 899-917, April.
    4. Dina Mayzlin & Jiwoong Shin, 2011. "Uninformative Advertising as an Invitation to Search," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(4), pages 666-685, July.
    5. Yan Lu & Debanjan Mitra & David Musto & Sugata Ray, 2020. "Can Brands Circumvent Marketing Regulations? Exploiting Umbrella Branding in Financial Markets," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(1), pages 71-91, January.
    6. Atayev, Atabek, 2022. "Uncertain product availability in search markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    7. Atabek Atayev, 2021. "Uncertain Product Availability in Search Markets," Papers 2109.15211, arXiv.org.
    8. Yang, Yupin & Lu, Qiang (Steven) & Tang, Guanting & Pei, Jian, 2015. "The Impact of Market Competition on Search Advertising," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 46-55.
    9. Roberto Burguet & Vaiva Petrikaite, 2017. "Targeted Advertising and Costly Consumer Search," Working Papers 971, Barcelona School of Economics.
    10. Wang, Chengsi, 2011. "Informative Advertising, Consumer Search and Transparency Policy," MPRA Paper 34977, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Atayev, Atabek, 2021. "Uncertain product availability in search markets," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-089, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    12. Obradovits, Martin, 2015. "Going to the Discounter: Consumer Search with Local Market Heterogeneities," MPRA Paper 66613, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Bikram P. Ghosh & Michael R. Galbreth, 2023. "Effect of search cost in the presence of search deterring informative advertising," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 357-379, September.
    14. Yuxin Chen & Qihong Liu, 2022. "Signaling Through Advertising When an Ad Can Be Blocked," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(1), pages 166-187, January.
    15. Ganesh Iyer & Dmitri Kuksov, 2012. "Competition in Consumer Shopping Experience," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 913-933, November.

    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. Maarten C.W. Janssen & Marielle C. Non, 2006. "Going where the Ad leads you: On High Advertised Prices and Search where to buy," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-075/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    2. Simon P. Anderson & Régis Renault, 2006. "Advertising Content," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 93-113, March.
    3. Dmitri Kuksov & Yuanfang Lin, 2010. "Information Provision in a Vertically Differentiated Competitive Marketplace," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 122-138, 01-02.
    4. Janssen, Maarten C.W. & Non, Marielle C., 2008. "Advertising and consumer search in a duopoly model," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 354-371, January.
    5. Rauch, Ferdinand, 2013. "Advertising expenditure and consumer prices," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 331-341.
    6. Dmitri Kuksov & Ashutosh Prasad & Mohammad Zia, 2017. "In-Store Advertising by Competitors," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 402-425, May.
    7. Jie Jennifer Zhang & Bing Jing, 2007. "The Impacts of Shopbots on Online Consumer Search," Working Papers 07-34, NET Institute, revised Sep 2007.
    8. Anania, Giovanni & Nisticò, Rosanna, 2014. "Price dispersion and seller heterogeneity in retail food markets," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 190-201.
    9. Astorne-Figari, Carmen & López, José Joaquín & Yankelevich, Aleksandr, 2019. "Advertising for consideration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 653-669.
    10. Simon P. Anderson & André De Palma, 2009. "Information congestion," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 40(4), pages 688-709, December.
    11. Cason, Timothy N. & Datta, Shakun, 2006. "An experimental study of price dispersion in an optimal search model with advertising," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 639-665, May.
    12. Zhuang, Hejun & Popkowski Leszczyc, Peter T.L. & Lin, Yuanfang, 2018. "Why is Price Dispersion Higher Online than Offline? The Impact of Retailer Type and Shopping Risk on Price Dispersion," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 136-153.
    13. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, January.
    14. ANDERSON, Simon & de PALMA, André, 2003. "Price dispersion," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2003032, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    15. Bing Jing, 2007. "Product differentiation under imperfect information: When does offering a lower quality pay?," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 35-61, March.
    16. Ganesh Iyer & David Soberman & J. Miguel Villas-Boas, 2005. "The Targeting of Advertising," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 461-476, May.
    17. Ruth G. Gilgenbach, 2009. "On Polarized Prices and Costly Sequential Search," Departmental Working Papers 0907, Southern Methodist University, Department of Economics.
    18. Atayev, Atabek, 2022. "Uncertain product availability in search markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    19. Obradovits, Martin, 2015. "Going to the Discounter: Consumer Search with Local Market Heterogeneities," MPRA Paper 66613, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Wilson, Chris M., 2010. "Ordered search and equilibrium obfuscation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 496-506, September.

    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:28:y:2009:i:1:p:87-98. 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.