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Self-Signaling and Prosocial Behavior: a cause marketing mobile field experiment

Last registered on August 05, 2015

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Self-Signaling and Prosocial Behavior: a cause marketing mobile field experiment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0000799
Initial registration date
August 05, 2015

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
August 05, 2015, 6:22 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Chicago Booth School of Business

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Sichuan University
PI Affiliation
Temple University

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2014-01-31
End date
2014-02-01
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We conduct two large-scale, randomized controlled field experiments for movie tickets sold on smartphones. Subjects are randomly assigned to one of several promotion campaigns with price discounts and/or charitable donations. Discount-only and charity-only campaigns increase demand. However, campaigns with both discounts and donations can decrease ticket demand. The findings are consistent with a self-signaling theory, whereby the discount crowds out the consumer’s self-inference from the charitable donation. Subjects also self-report lower ratings of “feeling good about themselves” for campaigns with both large discounts and donations. A structural model of self-signaling is fit to the data to quantify the role of self-signaling on purchases.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Dube, Jean-Pierre, Zheng Fang and Xueming Luo. 2015. "Self-Signaling and Prosocial Behavior: a cause marketing mobile field experiment." AEA RCT Registry. August 05. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.799-1.0
Former Citation
Dube, Jean-Pierre, Zheng Fang and Xueming Luo. 2015. "Self-Signaling and Prosocial Behavior: a cause marketing mobile field experiment." AEA RCT Registry. August 05. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/799/history/4927
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Mobile phone subscribers received promotional offers via SMS to purchase tickets to a movie. Subjects in the trial were randomly assigned to a specific promotional condition, which entailed a specific ticket price and, in some cases, a pre-determined portion of the price to be donated to a pre-determined charity. Subjects either purchase the ticket or do not purchase the ticket.
Intervention Start Date
2014-01-31
Intervention End Date
2014-02-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
To test whether consumer response to charitable donations reflects altruism versus self-signaling.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The goal is to see if the combination of donations and price discounts can lower demand. This would be used as evidence of self-signaling behavior.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We created 21 different promotional campaigns, each consisting of a price per ticket and a donation per ticket. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of these 21 cells.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done by computer.
Randomization Unit
individual subscriber.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
30000 subscribers.
Sample size: planned number of observations
30000 subscribers
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
cell sizes will range from 500 to 3000 subjects
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
This varies by cell. Our goal is to look at the proportion of subjects that buy (vs not buy) a ticket in a given experimental cell. We then want to test for differences in proportions between cells. So let's suppose we want to test whether two promotion cells have significantly different purchase responses. Based on a pilot test, we might expect 2% response when the price is 30% off and 5% response when the price is 50% off. To test for a significant difference, we would need 1,506 subjects in each of the two cells at 5% significance level and a power level of 0.8.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Chicago Instutitional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2013-12-03
IRB Approval Number
IRB13-1400
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials