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

Live-streaming selling (LSS) integrates real-time content, consumer interaction, and transactions, making content allocation a key strategic decision. 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. Product-related content communicates experiential value but may spill over to comparable products through consumer perception and comparison. Brand-related content 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. When products are close substitutes, mixed content becomes optimal because brand-related content expands loyal demand, softens price competition, and supports higher prices. Under certain conditions, mixed content can also benefit the weak-brand firm by relaxing competition despite reducing spillover gains, creating a win-win outcome. With endogenous content allocation, the strong-brand firm devotes more time to brand-related content as competition intensifies. Overall, this study highlights the strategic role of brand communication, which strengthens loyalty, shapes competitive outcomes, and sustains long-term profitability in live-streaming selling markets.