Title: Advertising and pricing strategies in online video platform

Authors: Jinting Huang; Biao Xu; Xiangbin Yan

Addresses: School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China ' School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China ' School of Economics and Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China

Abstract: In recent years, the rapid development of online video industries enables many retailers, such as Oreo and M&M, to advertise in the video platforms (e.g., YouTube, Netflix) for attracting more potential consumers. In this paper, we propose a theoretical model to study the optimal pricing strategies for a video platform and a retailer. We derive the equilibrium pricing and advertising decisions and analyse the impacts of consumers' preference, advertising fill rate and advertising fee on the equilibrium results. We find that a lower retailed product price and a higher VIP membership price contribute to higher profits. For the video platform, a nonlinear advertising fee function generates a higher profit to the retailer than a linear advertising fee function does.

Keywords: video platform; VIP membership; advertising strategy; pricing strategy; advertising fill rate; advertising fee function.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2026.154003

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2026 Vol.52 No.2, pp.192 - 219

Received: 17 Jan 2022
Accepted: 26 Jul 2022
Published online: 10 Jun 2026 *

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