Brand as a competitive lever: content provision and product pricing in live-streaming selling

This study examines how strong-brand firms should allocate limited live-streaming time between product-related and brand-related content when competing with weak-brand firms offering functionally similar but vertically differentiated products. <i>Product-related content</i> communicates experiential value but may spill over to comparable products through consumer perception and comparison. <i>Brand-related content</i> crowds out product demonstrations but builds loyal demand and reduces direct comparison.

We develop a theoretical model with consumer-perception-based experiential information spillover. The strong-brand firm chooses between pure-product and mixed content strategies. We show that when brand value is sufficiently high and product differentiation is substantial, pure-product content is preferred.