Improving the adoption of household health products: A sales experiment with chlorine tablets
通过上门销售实验，发现将氯片与按零售价销售的廉价副品搭配时，氯片使用率几乎翻倍，而促销副品则无此效果，表明副品的存在和定价通过营销压力影响新产品采用。
We test a door-to-door marketing intervention aimed to increase use of a targeted health product among poor households. Specifically, we examine three treatments in which this good-chlorine tablets for drinking water purification-is: (1) sold alone, (2) sold alongside a familiar and cheaper side good that is priced at its retail value, and (3) sold alongside the same side good that is priced on a promotional offer. The side good when sold at retail price is intended to be an "opt-out" good to reduce the marketing pressure, which should in turn reduce the amount of products sold that go unused. When the side good is sold on promotion, however, we hypothesize that it reintroduces marketing pressure due to the "gift" aspect of the promotion. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that chlorine use is nearly double in the second condition compared to the other two conditions. Our results suggest that household valuation of a new product is shaped by both the presence and the price of a side good due to marketing pressure.