A Note on Multi-Regional Marketing
研究一家垂直整合公司在多个地理区域运营时如何最大化利润，比较了两种管理决策场景：一种允许各区域独立调整所有营销变量，另一种则强制某个营销变量在全球统一。
This paper examines the profit maximizing behavior of a vertically integrated firm that operates in “n” geographically distinct regions. A pair of alternative managerial decision scenarios are considered. In one scenario, all marketing mix variables are manipulated at the regional level, so that each region may choose different levels of each marketing variable. In the second scenario, one marketing variable is manipulated “globally,” so that its level is identical in all regions. The first scenario generates an n-region version of the “Dorfman-Steiner” first-order conditions for profit maximization. However, under some cost structures the profits associated with this Dorfman-Steiner scenario are dominated by those associated with the second, “Global-Regional” scenario. This second scenario yields an optimal solution in which the global marketing variable may have a negative marginal impact on sales in some regions. As a result, some managerial implications of the second scenario differ strikingly from those of the Dorfman-Steiner scenario.