IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bjafio/v1y2003i1n16.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Vertical Product Differentiation in Theory and Practice

Author

Listed:
  • Eales James

    (Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA)

  • Binkley James K

    (Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA)

Abstract

This study examines the role of advertising on consumers' quality perception as a method to vertically differentiate in the baking mix market. Two companies, General Mills and Chelsea Mills have competed head to head since 1930s, using drastically different strategies. General Mills has consistently promoted Bisquick and provided recipes for its use. Chelsea Mills has never advertised its product, Jiffy, preferring instead to minimize cost and provide service to retailers. Both strategies have been successful, resulting in an equilibrium resembling theoretical vertical differentiation models.

Suggested Citation

  • Eales James & Binkley James K, 2003. "Vertical Product Differentiation in Theory and Practice," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-18, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bjafio:v:1:y:2003:i:1:n:16
    DOI: 10.2202/1542-0485.1026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1542-0485.1026
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1542-0485.1026?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fudenberg, Drew, 1986. "Noncooperative Game Theory for Industrial Organization: An Introduction and Overview," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt9j39n20f, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    2. Fudenberg, Drew & Tirole, Jean, 1989. "Noncooperative game theory for industrial organization: An introduction and overview," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 5, pages 259-327, Elsevier.
    3. Giancarlo Moschini, 1995. "Units of Measurement and the Stone Index in Demand System Estimation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 77(1), pages 63-68.
    4. Thomas, Louis & Shane, Scott & Weigelt, Keith, 1998. "An empirical examination of advertising as a signal of product quality," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 415-430, December.
    5. Marcel Canoy & Martin Peitz, 1997. "The Differentiation Triangle," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 305-328, September.
    6. Avner Shaked & John Sutton, 1982. "Relaxing Price Competition Through Product Differentiation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(1), pages 3-13.
    7. Asher Wolinsky, 1983. "Prices as Signals of Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 50(4), pages 647-658.
    8. Caves, Richard E. & Greene, David P., 1996. "Brands' quality levels, prices, and advertising outlays: empirical evidence on signals and information costs," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 29-52.
    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. Garella, Paolo G., 2006. ""Innocuous" minimum quality standards," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 368-374, September.
    2. Stefan Napel & Gunnar Oldehaver, 2011. "A dynamic perspective on minimum quality standards under Cournot competition," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 29-49, February.
    3. Stefan Lutz & Mina Baliamoune-Lutz, 2003. "Mutual Recognition of National Minimum Quality Standards may Support International Convergence," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 293-311, December.
    4. Farzin, Y. H. & Akao, K. I., 2008. "Environmental Quality in a Differentiated Duopoly Facing a Minimum Quality Standard," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 271509, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    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. Fluet, Claude & Garella, Paolo G., 2002. "Advertising and prices as signals of quality in a regime of price rivalry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 907-930, September.
    2. Mark N. Hertzendorf & Per Baltzer Overgaard, 2001. "Price Competition and Advertising Signals: Signaling by Competing Senders," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(4), pages 621-662, December.
    3. Robert B. Barsky & Mark Bergen & Shantanu Dutta & Daniel Levy, 2003. "What Can the Price Gap between Branded and Private-Label Products Tell Us about Markups?," NBER Chapters, in: Scanner Data and Price Indexes, pages 165-225, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Pierre-Pascal Gendron, 1996. "Corporation Tax Asymmetries: An Oligopolistic Supergame Analysis," Working Papers ecpap-96-04, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    5. Sverre Grepperud, 2005. "Medical Errors: Mandatory Reporting, Voluntary Reporting, or Both?," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 99-112, July.
    6. Luigi Guiso & Tullio Jappelli, 2005. "Awareness and Stock Market Participation," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 9(4), pages 537-567.
    7. Paolo G. Garella & Martin Peitz, 2000. "Intermediation Can Replace Certification," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(1), pages 1-24, March.
    8. Gilles Duranton, 1997. "La nouvelle économie géographique : agglomération et dispersion," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 131(5), pages 1-24.
    9. Lindbeck, Assar & Snower, Dennis J., 2003. "The Firm as a Pool of Factor Complementarities," IZA Discussion Papers 882, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Dan Anderberg & Carlo Perroni, "undated". "Renegotiation of Social Contracts by Majority Rule," EPRU Working Paper Series 00-15, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    11. James E. Alt & Barry Eichengreen, 1989. "Parallel And Overlapping Games: Theory And An Application To The European Gas Trade," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(2), pages 119-144, July.
    12. Choy, Marylin & Costa, Eduardo & Churata, Eloy, 2015. "Radiografía del costo del crédito en el Perú," Revista Estudios Económicos, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, issue 30, pages 25-55.
    13. Harhoff, Dietmar & Wagner, Stefan, 2005. "Modelling the duration of patent examination at the European Patent Office," CEPR Discussion Papers 5283, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Kwamena K. Quagrainie & Jill J. McCluskey & Maria L. Loureiro, 2003. "A Latent Structure Approach to Measuring Reputation," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(4), pages 966-977, April.
    15. David Carfì & Alessia Donato, 2018. "Cournot-Bayesian General Equilibrium: A Radon Measure Approach," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-19, December.
    16. Uwe Cantner & Andreas Nicklisch & Torsten Weiland, 2005. "Innovation races: An experimental study on strategic research activities," Papers on Strategic Interaction 2005-14, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group.
    17. K. Conrad, 2000. "Energy Tax and Competition in Energy Efficiency: The Case of Consumer Durables," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 15(2), pages 159-177, February.
    18. Bester, Helmut & Ritzberger, Klaus, 2001. "Strategic pricing, signalling, and costly information acquisition," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(9), pages 1347-1361, November.
    19. Raquel Arévalo Tomé & José‐María Chamorro‐Rivas, 2007. "Credible collusion in a model of spatial competition," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(4), pages 633-642, November.
    20. Grunewald, Andreas & Kräkel, Matthias, 2017. "Advertising as signal jamming," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 91-113.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bpj:bjafio:v:1:y:2003:i:1:n:16. 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: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyterbrill.com .

    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.