Optimal dynamic marketing-mix policies for frequently purchased products and services versus consumer durable goods: A generalized analytic approach

Abstract This paper deals with the qualitative characterization of optimal pricing and advertising policies together with the optimal ratio of the advertising elasticity of demand to its price elasticity over time. The problem is studied for frequently purchased products and services (FPS) as well as consumer durable goods (CDG) in both monopolistic and duopolistic markets. Demand dynamics, cost learning and discounting of future profits are taken into consideration. In addition, both the open-loop and feedback methodologies are pursued to characterize and compare the derived optimal policies. The paper uses an analytical approach to characterize the optimal dynamic policies in a general setting as is mathematically tractable, followed by the analysis of more specific models to gain additional managerial insights while maintaining a certain degree of generality. Optimal FPS marketing-mix policies are shown to be different from their CDG counterparts for both monopolistic and duopolistic markets. While the ratio of advertising elasticity to price elasticity appears to have been governed by similar set of rules for FPS and CDG, the direction of change of such ratio over time looks different from each other. Managerial implications and directions for future research are also discussed.

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