Abstract:
We present a strategic game of pricing and targeted-advertising. Firms cansimultaneously target priceadvertisements to different groups of customers, or to the entiremarket. Pure strategy equilibria do not exist and thus marketsegmentation cannot occur surely. Equilibria exhibit random advertising--to induce an unequal distribution of information in the market-- andrandom pricing --to obtain profits from badly informed buyers--. Wecharacterize a positive profits equilibrium where firms advertise lowprices to a segment of consumers, high prices to a distinct segment ofconsumers, and intermediate prices to the entire market. As a resultthe market is segmented only from time to time and presentssubstantial price dispersion across segments.