Improving the Use of Health Products : A Sales Experiment with Chlorine Tablets in India

We test a door-to-door marketing intervention aimed to increase use of a tar- geted health product, in our setting chlorine tablets for drinking water purification. Specifically, we examine three treatments in which this good 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 the total 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