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1、外文翻译The Making of a “Hot Product”: A Signaling Explanation of MarketersScarcity StrategyAuthor: Axel Stock, Subramanian BalachanderAbstract: Every marketers dream is to create a “hot product” that customers would absolutely want to have, thus generating considerable profit to the marketer. According
2、 to one school of thought, marketers should make products hard to get in order to create really hot products. In this paper, using a game-theoretic model, we investigate if such scarcity strategies can indeed be optimal. While a scarcity strategy may appear to be a viable approach for making a firms
3、 product successful, further analysis raises some puzzling issues. In particular, it is not clear why a firm would not increase its price to get demand and supply in sync and increase its profit in the process. We therefore offer a signaling explanation for the optimality of such strategies and show
4、 that a high-quality seller may optimally choose to make the product scarce in order to credibly signal the quality of its product to uninformed customers. Our analysis indicates that a high-quality seller optimally employs scarcity as a signaling device in product markets that are characterized, ce
5、teris paribus, by a small difference in marginal cost between high- and low-quality products, a low reservation price for a low-quality product, a greater heterogeneity in reservation prices for a high-quality product, and a moderate number of informed consumers. Our results provide a rationale for
6、the fact that scarcity strategies are usually observed for discretionary or specialty products, but not for commodity products, staple products, or new-to-the-world products.Key words: marketing strategy; signaling; pricing research; product managementIn the fall of 2000 Sonys Playstation 2 was cons
7、idered one of the hottest consumer electronics products available (Retailing Today 2000). This was partly due to its functionality, but even more so because limited product availability was causing a buying frenzy. Officially, component problems were blamed for this shortage, but surprisingly simila
8、r problems had occurred during the introduction of the Playstation 2 to the Japanese market eight months earlier. Many industry observers wondered if supply problems were a tongue-in-cheek explanation of a deliberate strategy of shortage to create more hype for the product (Retailing Today 2000). Th
9、us, a manager at a retail store of the Toys R Us chain commented, “I think its just a marketing thing to get people really excited” (The San Francisco Chronicle 2000, p. A17). The example of Sonys Playstation 2 does not stand alone. Nintendos Game Boy cartridges were similarly hard to get and became
10、 a “hot” product when they were introduced (The Wall Street Journal 1989). Scarcity and accompanying hype is also a common practice in the automotive industry, as was experienced by purchasers of Miatas, Harleys, New Beetles, and PT Cruisers. More recently, consumers signed up on waiting lists for h
11、ard-to-get cars such as the Mercedes CLK320 convertible, but car makers were not exactly rushing to speed up production (The Wall Street Journal 1999). A similar phenomenon can be observed in the world of designer fashion with consumers getting in line “for the privilege of paying $750 for falls mos
12、t-wanted Prada boots” (The Globe and Mail 1999). Informed consumers get on these waiting lists early and are able to purchase the products, while those coming later may be unable to purchase even if they are willing to pay the price. The above examples suggest perhaps a conscious strategy on the par
13、t of marketers to use product scarcity as a marketing tool. Indeed, according to Ramirez (The New YorkT imes 1989, p. D1), Nintendos marketing strategy for its video games was to “both stimulate demand and ration its availability, insuring that Nintendo games are far more desired than readily obtain
14、able.”Further, two recent articles in the Harvard Business Review have given greater prominence to such “scarcity” strategies by suggesting that these be part of the marketers toolkit (Dye 2000, Brown 2001). However, when subject to hard-nosed analysis, the scarcity strategy employed by Sony and the
15、 other firms raises some puzzling issues. Why would the firm not increase its introductory price in order to get demand and supply in sync, and increase its profit in the process? At that time, Sonys Playstation2 was being traded for up to 300% of its price in auctions, which suggests that Sony was
16、leaving some money on the table. Alternatively, firms could delay introduction of the product until they have accumulated enough inventory to meet the demand. Thus, it is not clear that a firm benefits from scarcity strategies, especially if it underproduces a “hot” product. Also, if scarcity is suc
17、h an effective marketing strategy, why is it not used more extensively?In this paper, we offer a signaling explanation for this puzzling phenomenon. Using a model similar to Bagwell and Riordan (1991), we consider a seller with private information about quality facing both informed (expert) and unin
18、formed consumers, with the informed consumers buying earlier than the uninformed consumers. To signal quality to uninformed consumers, the seller could choose to make the product scarce (through the choice of production quantity) or use price or uninformative advertising as signals. We then show tha
19、t product scarcity can be an optimal strategy for a seller to credibly signal to uninformed consumers that the products quality is high. Signaling of quality through price has received considerable attention in the marketing literature (Rao and Monroe 1989, Bagwell and Riordan 1991, Moorthy and Srin
20、ivasan 1995). Our model extends the strategy space by allowing for signaling with scarcity. Interestingly, we show that signaling through scarcity can be more efficient than price under some conditions. The key to the intuition is that scarcity affects only later buyers as the seller runs out of the
21、 product, while a price distortion affects all buyers. Because the later buyers are the uninformed consumers in our model, a scarcity strategy affects only the sales from such consumers, unlike a signal produced by price distortion. Furthermore, because a low-quality seller who pretends to offer a h
22、igh-quality product expects to make his sales from uninformed consumers alone, such a pretender is hurt more effectively by the scarcity strategy. Thus, the scarcity strategy can allow the high-quality seller to separate more efficiently than with a price distortion by sacrificing profits from uninf
23、ormed consumers in order to retain more profits from informed consumers. In this way, scarcity credibly signals to uninformed consumers that informed consumers are buying the product, which therefore must be of high quality. Our extended analysis also shows that scarcity can be at least as efficient
24、 as uninformative advertising as a signaling device. Although scarcity strategies as described above have been part of marketing folklore, they have received little attention in the marketing literature. The economics literature offers some explanations, but these have not involved signaling. In an
25、interesting paper, Becker (1991) shows that when there are positive demand externalities due to social reasons, a restaurant may have long queues for tables but would still not raise prices. The rationale is that the demand externalities may cause the demand curve to slope upwards at the capacity le
26、vel of the restaurant, reaching a maximum price at some larger quantity. The restaurant chooses this maximum price and has excess demand because the quantity demanded exceeds its capacity. Although Beckers result extends beyond restaurants, his explanation hinges on capacity being determined before
27、demand is known. If capacity choice is allowed, a restaurant may add tables so that the excess demand would disappear. In a different model, DeGraba (1995) allows for capacity choice in addition to choice of price and shows that a seller may produce less than demand to create a buying frenzy among c
28、ustomers before they become informed about their need for the product. Because uninformed customers have more homogeneous valuations, the scarcity enables better capture of the customer surplus by the seller.Unlike Becker (1991), we do not assume demand externalities and we allow the seller to choos
29、e a production amount that can meet demand. In both Becker (1991) and DeGraba (1995), the scarcity alone does not change customers beliefs about the value or quality of the product, contrary to the anecdotal evidence presented earlier. In contrast, our model offers a mechanism for how seller-induced
30、 scarcity can favorably influence customers beliefs about the quality of the product. Moreover, some customers will be disappointed (derive negative surplus) ex post with their purchase in DeGrabas model, having made the purchase while uninformed. On the contrary, in our signaling model, all custome
31、rs correctly value the product before purchase in the separating equilibrium, so that the surplus remains positive even after purchase. This feature of our model is consistent with the high post-purchase satisfaction for scarce products such as Sony Playstation 2 and the Mazda Miata. Lastly, DeGraba
32、s results depend on the product being unavailable beyond the introductory period. Thus, its applicability to long-lived products such as the Sony Playstation 2 is unclear. While our theory appears to be consistent with aspects of the video console and the automobile examples, we emphasize that our s
33、ignaling explanation does not preclude alternate explanations for instances of product scarcity. In particular, the scarcity of fashion products such as the Prada boots cited earlier can also be driven by a consumer need for exclusivity.We briefly discuss this issue further in the concluding section
34、.译文做一个热门产品：一个信号解释饥饿营销策略作者：Axel Stock, Subramanian Balachander摘要：每一个市场销售人员的梦想是制造一个消费者绝对想要拥有的热门产品，由此产生可观的市场利润。根据一种学派，销售人员应当是使产品很难被获得，由此去创造非常热门的产品。在这篇文章中，用一个赛局理论模型，我们考察稀缺策略确实被能优化。虽然稀缺策略似乎是一种可行的方法使公司的产品的成功，但进一步的分析增加了一些令人困惑的问题。尤其是目前尚不清楚为什么公司不增加它的价格得到供需同步和增加利润的过程。我们为此提供了一个信号去解释最佳的策略，显示一个优质的卖方的最优选择是给不知情的顾客
35、一个可靠的信号表示一种高质量的产品的稀缺。我们的分析表示一个高品质的卖家。我们的分析表明，高端产品卖方会最佳地利用稀缺作为产品市场的一个信号装置，它可以通过高端和低端产品边际成本上的小差别来加以说明，低端产品以保留价格销售，对于高端产品，其保留价格则具有较大的不均匀性，还有适度知情的消费者。我们研究的稀缺战略是通常为量身定做或有特色的产品提供理论基础，而不是为了常见的产品。关键词：市场营销策略；信号；定价研究；产品管理2000年秋季索尼游戏机2代被认为是最热门的消费类电子产品之一(Retailing Today 2000)。这一定程度上由于它的功能,但更多的是因为供应是有限的产品造成了购买狂潮
36、。官方说, 组件的问题因为短缺而被责备, 但令人惊讶的类似的问题发生在八个月前日本市场引进游戏站2的时期。许多行业观察家怀疑，是否供给问题是个故意的短缺战略的不认真的的解释，为去创造创造更多的产品宣传(Retailing Today 2000).因此，在一个Toys R Us的连锁零售商店经理评论，“我认为这只是一个营销情况为了是要让人变得兴奋” (The San Francisco Chronicle 2000, p. A17).。索尼游戏机2的例子不会是唯一的。任天堂Game Boy暗盒在他们引进时也同样的很难获得，成了一个“热门”的产品(The Wall Street Journal 1
37、989). 稀缺伴随着炒作也是在汽车工业一种习惯做法，按以前的经验，像Miatas，哈雷，新甲虫，和PT巡洋舰的购买者。最近，消费者签订了难以获得的车的等候名单像奔驰CLK320敞篷车，但汽车制造商们并不急于加快生产(The Wall Street Journal 1999)。一个类似的现象在世界名牌时装界可以被观察到，消费者排队为了获得支付价值750美元的秋季最想要的普拉达靴子的权利。(The Globe and Mail 1999). 通知用户得到这些候选名单上的早期,可以买你的产品，而随后可能无法买到,即使他们愿意支付价格。上述例子显示或许市场营销人员使用产品稀缺作为营销手段是有意识的策
38、略。的确，根据Ramirez(The New York Times 1989, p. D1), 任天堂的营销策略,并对它的视频游戏是“既刺激需求和限制供货量,确保任天堂游戏更能获得乐趣。”而且，最近的两篇文章在哈佛商业评论已作出较大的分析，暗示稀缺战略以成为营销人员的营销手段的一部分(Dye 2000, Brown 2001)。当受到实际的分析，索尼和其他公司运用缺乏战略增加了一些令人困惑的问题。为什么公司不提高产品的定价达到需求和供给同步，在这个过程中增加利润呢？当时，索尼游戏机2在拍卖时被交易到300%的价格，这表明索尼公开的留下一些钱。另外,公司可能延迟产品的引进,直到他们积累了足够的存
39、货以满足需求。因此，目前尚不清楚,一个公司得益于稀缺的策略，特别是供不应求的“热门”产品。同样,如果稀缺是一种很有效的营销策略,为什么不运用得更广泛的呢?在本篇论文中，我们提供一个信号解释这个使人疑惑的现象。使用模式类似Bagwell and Riordan (1991), 我们认为卖家关于质量的保密信息面对专家和不知情的消费者，知情的消费者比不知情的消费者购买更早。为了给不知情的消费者信号质量，卖方可以选择使产品稀缺(通过选择生产的数量)，或者使用价格或不做广告作为信号。然后我们表示产品稀缺可能会是卖家的最优策略，让消费者以为是产品质量高的可靠信号。质量通过价格的信号在营销文献中得到了相当的
40、重视(Rao and Monroe 1989, Bagwell and Riordan 1991, Moorthy and Srinivasan 1995). 我们的模型通过稀缺的信号扩展战略空间。有趣的是，我们的分析表明,信号通过稀缺在某些情况下比价格更有效。稀缺性的影响只是后来买家，而价格失真会影响所有的买家。因为更迟的买家在我们的模型里不明是就不知情的消费者，缺乏战略只影响这样的消费者的销售，不像一个价格失真产生的信号。而且，因为是低质量的产品的卖家假装提供高质量的产品希望从不知情的消费者中创造销售额，这样的伪装者通过稀缺的策略造成的伤害更有效。因此，稀缺策略可以认为优质卖方的独立比价格
41、失真更有效，通过牺牲通过不知情消费者创造的利润，为了留住从知情的消费者中获得的更多的利润。这样，缺乏可靠信号告知不知情的消费者，知情的消费者正在购买这种产品,它因此必须是高质量的。我们的扩展分析表明，稀缺作为一个信号策略至少比无意义的广告有效。尽管缺乏战略如上所述的已在成为行业间营销的的一部分，但他们在在营销学受到很少的关注。经济学文献提供了一些解释，但这并没有涉及信号。在一篇有趣的文章中，Becker (1991) 显示由于社会原因当有积极的需求外部性时，餐厅可能顾客排长队,但仍然不能提高价格。其基本原理是，需求外部性可能会导致在餐厅在生产力水平稳定的情况下，需求曲线会向上倾斜，在一定的大的
42、量上，价格达到最高。餐厅选择这个最高价格，并已超额需求因为需求量超过他的生产力。尽管贝克的结果超出餐馆,他的解释是当需求是已知的情况下要视生产力而定。餐厅可以添加桌子解决过量的需求的问题。在一个不同的模式中，DeGraba (1995) 考虑到生产力选择之外也可以选择价格，一个卖家可能生产力小于需求去引起消费者的购买狂潮，之前在他们了解产品的需要之前。因为不知情的客户有更均匀的估值,稀缺能是卖家能好得获得消费者过剩。 不像Becker (1991), 我们不承担需求的外部性,我们允许卖方选择一个产品的生产数量可以满足人们的需求。Becker (1991) and DeGraba (1995)都
43、表示，稀缺本身不能改变客户的价值观或产品质量的观念，违背了先前的证据。比较起来，我们的模式提供一种机制，供应商引起的稀缺能顺利得影响顾客关于产品质量的观念。此外，在DeGraba模型里一些客户可能会在购买后感到失望，在作出购买时不知情。相反，在我们的信号传递模型里，所有客户在购买之前产品的正确价值在分离平衡，因此所以盈余维持良好甚至在购买之后。我们这个模式的特点与稀缺产品的高售后满意度一致，如索尼游戏机2和马自达Miata。最后，DeGraba的结果取决于产品无法超越入门的时期。因此，它适用于长寿的产品,如索尼游戏机2目前尚不清楚。虽然我们的理论似乎与视频控制台和汽车的例子一致，需要强调的是我们的信号的解释没有排除交替的说明例如产品的稀缺。特别是,该稀缺的时尚产品如Prada靴子，引用也可以早些驱动消费者需求的排他性。
