Sustaining Marketer-Consumer Cooperation through Coordination Games

Abstract

Previous chapters have demonstrated that both marketers and consumers would choose more cooperative strategies if they could sustain and coordinate them. Coordination game concepts can be used to analyze this potential. Disarmament agreements in the Cold War exemplify coordination games at work; both sides have a built-in incentive to cooperate, but they must provide reassurances to the other side in order for the agreement to be trusted. The concept of the stag hunt, in which hunters reap richer rewards by coordinating their actions, describes some of the opportunities available in social media. My own concepts of the “exposed flank” strategyand the “neutral ground” strategy describe methods used effectively by marketersto signal and sustain cooperation with consumers in social media marketing.