Opinion dynamics aware marketing strategies in duopolies

We analyze the competition between two firms when each firm's market share depends on the average opinion of the consumer population about their respective products. All the consumers interact with each other through a social network and these interactions result in a certain dynamics of their opinion. Each firm attempts to sway the public opinion to its own side by spending money on advertising or other marketing tools (like discounts) on specific consumers. We propose a novel model in which the firms are aware of the opinion dynamics and the structure of the social network. As a result, they can prioritize certain consumer nodes over others based on the social graph. We tackle the problem by defining an appropriate static game model and conduct the corresponding equilibrium analysis. Our results are illustrated by a numerical performance analysis which provides several insights into the choice of investment strategies and how they relate to the consumer social network.