正负试看效应下网络视频平台的内容提供策略选择

Provision strategy choices of the network video platform under the positive and negative effect of the free trial

基于网络视频的消费行为特征,在正负试看效应下建立了考虑消费者学习成本和预期认知的网络视频平台收益模型,分析不同情况下的平台收益和策略选择。研究发现:当平台不提供免费试看时,若消费者学习成本较小,付费策略的收益大于免费策略的收益。当平台提供试看时,若学习成本较大,正负试看效应下平台提供试看的收益均大于不提供试看的收益。试看效应为正向时,若学习成本较小,平台应该选择付费策略;若学习成本较大,平台应选择试看策略;若学习成本适中且预期认知较高,平台应选择免费策略。试看效应为负向时,无论消费者预期认知和学习成本如何变化,平台均不会选择试看策略,但提供试看不一定为最劣选择。此外,当消费者预期认知较低且学习成本较小时,负向试看效应下的平台收益大于正向试看效应下的平台收益。

With the development of the internet economy,the network video has become an indispensable part of our daily life.The provision strategy of domestic network video industry is in rapid development at present.In order to induce more consumers to watch videos,more and more network video platforms have provided some free trial clips of a video for consumers,which is named as a trial strategy,besides a paid strategy and a free strategy.However,offering free trial clips of a video is a double-edged sword.Only when consumers have a better trial experience of a video can they subscribe to it.If the free trial does not satisfy consumers’preference,a trial strategy will do harm to the network video platform,resulting in an erosion of market demand.Therefore,we make an analysis about the provision strategy choices of the network video platform by consideration of positive and negative effect of the free trial in this paper.Based on the actual situation of the network video platform,we propose three provision strategies of network video:a paid strategy,a free strategy and a trial strategy.The effect of a trial strategy is investigated under two situations,that is,the positive effect and negative effect derived from the free trial clips of a video in this paper.When the network platform adopts a trial strategy,the consumption behavior is divided into three categories:subscribing to a video without watching the trial clips,subscribing to a video after watching the trial clips and not subscribing to a video after watching the trial clips.On these bases,we assume that the network video platform adopts the above three strategies to offer videos for consumers.To maximize its revenue,the network video platform always offers videos by adopting different provision strategies which bring revenue from different sources,such as the subscription fee derived from a paid strategy,the advertising revenue derived from a free strategy,and both subscription fee and advertising derived from a trial strategy.The characteristics of the network video consumption behavior are considered in the modeling of the provision strategy choices.Specifically,we assume that consumers who subscribe to a video without watching the trial clips have put some efforts and time in learning about the video before they decide to subscribe to it.And only when consumers have high expectations for a video will they subscribe to a video without watching the trial clips.Therefore,we define effort and time that consumers use for learning about a video as a learning cost.The expectation of consumers and the learning cost are taken into consideration to represent the characteristics of the consumers who subscribe to a video without a trial under a paid strategy.The free trial time and the changes of consumers’preference after watching the free trial clips are considered to build a provision choice model under a trial strategy.This research is composed of three parts.The first is to analyze the equilibrium solutions and the provision strategy choices under the cases that the network video platform offers a video with a paid strategy or a free strategy.And then the equilibrium solutions and the provision strategy choices of network video platforms are derived in the presence of the positive and negative effect of the free trial clips,respectively.On these bases,we make a comparison of the revenue of the network video platform that adopting different provision strategies in the presence of the positive and negative effect of the free trial.According to the principle of individual rationality(IR)and incentive compatibility(IC),we first construct the function of consumer utility and market demand,and then the optimal subscription fee,the amount of advertising and the revenue of the platform are calculated respectively under different conditions.Research has shown that when the trial clips of a video are not offered by the platform,and the learning cost that consumers have to spend is lower,the revenue derived from adopting a paid strategy is greater than that of adopting a free strategy.When the network video platform offers some free trial clips of a video to consumers,and the learning cost that consumers have to spend is higher,the revenue derived from adopting a trial strategy is greater than that of not offering the free trial clips in the presence of the positive and negative trial effect.The choices of provision strategies for the online video platform in the presence of the positive trial effect vary with different conditions.Specifically,a paid strategy is the best choice for the platform if the learning cost is lower.Conversely,If the learning cost is higher,adopting a trial strategy is the optimal choice.If the learning cost is moderate and the expectation of consumers is higher,the platform can benefit from offering a video for free.In the presence of negative trial effect,a paid strategy is the optimal choice for the platform if the learning cost is lower.If the learning cost is relatively higher,a free strategy is the optimal choice for the platform.Regardless of the degree of the expectation and the learning cost,a trial strategy is always not optimal for the platform,while it is not the worst choice for a video with the negative trial effect.In addition,results run counter to the conventional wisdom that the revenue of the network video platform in the presence of the negative trial effect is greater than that in the presence of the positive trial effect,under the condition that both the learning cost and the expectation of consumers are lower.