Can Facebook Ads Prevent Malaria? Two Field Experiments in India

Published Online:https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2024.0929

References

  • Acquisti A, Taylor C, Wagman L (2016) The economics of privacy. J. Econom. Literature 54(2):442–492.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Anderson SJ, Chandy R, Zia B (2018) Pathways to profits: The impact of marketing vs. finance skills on business performance. Management Sci. 64(12):5559–5583.Link, Google Scholar
  • Andreasen AR (1994) Social marketing: Its definition and domain. J. Public Policy Marketing 13(1):108–114.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Athey S, Grabarz K, Luca M, Wernerfelt N (2023) Digital public health interventions at scale: The impact of social media advertising on beliefs and outcomes related to covid vaccines. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 120(5):e2208110120.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Bart Y, Stephen AT, Sarvary M (2014) Which products are best suited to mobile advertising? A field study of mobile display advertising effects on consumer attitudes and intentions. J. Marketing Res. 51(3):270–285.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Benjamini Y, Hochberg Y (1995) Controlling the false discovery rate: A practical and powerful approach to multiple testing. J. Roy. Statist. Soc. Ser. B (Methodological) 57(1):289–300.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Brecko K, Hartmann WR (2026) Marketing and economics of harm reduction: Evidence from conservation field experiments. J. Marketing Res. 63(2):340–363. Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Bulte E, Lensink R, Vu N (2017) Do gender and business trainings affect business outcomes? Experimental evidence from Vietnam. Management Sci. 63(9):2885–2902.Link, Google Scholar
  • Burchell K, Rettie R, Patel K (2013) Marketing social norms: Social marketing and the social norm approach. J. Consumer Behav. 12(1):1–9.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Carins JE, Rundle-Thiele SR (2014) Eating for the better: A social marketing review (2000–2012). Public Health Nutrition 17(7):1628–1639.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Chandy RK, Johar GV, Moorman C, Roberts JH (2021) Better marketing for a better world. J. Marketing 85(3):1–9.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Cohen J, Dupas P (2010) Free distribution or cost-sharing? Evidence from a randomized malaria prevention experiment. Quart. J. Econom. 125(1):1–45.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Cohen J, Dupas P, Schaner S (2015) Price subsidies, diagnostic tests, and targeting of malaria treatment: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial. Amer. Econom. Rev. 105(2):609–645.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Conteh L, Shuford K, Agboraw E, Kont M, Kolaczinski J, Patouillard E (2021) Costs and cost-effectiveness of malaria control interventions: A systematic literature review. Value Health 24(8):1213–1222.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Davis B, Grewal D, Hamilton S (2021) The future of marketing analytics and public policy. J. Public Policy Marketing 40(4):447–452.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Dev V, Phookan S, Sharma VP, Anand SP (2004) Physiographic and entomologic risk factors of malaria in Assam, India. Amer. J. Tropical Medicine Hygiene 71(4):451–456.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Donati D, Orozco-Olvera V, Rao N (2022) Using social media to change gender norms: An experiment within Facebook messenger in India. Accessed May 1, 2026, http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38113.Google Scholar
  • Evans WD, Bingenheimer JB, Long M, Ndiaye K, Donati D, Rao NM, Akaba S, et al. (2023) Outcomes of a social media campaign to promote Covid-19 vaccination in Nigeria. PLoS One 18(9):e0290757.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Fogg BJ (2009) A behavior model for persuasive design. Chatterjee S, Dev P, eds. Proc. 4th Internat. Conf. Persuasive Tech. (Association for Computing Machinery, New York), 1–7.Google Scholar
  • Goldfarb A, Tucker CE (2011) Privacy regulation and online advertising. Management Sci. 57(1):57–71.Link, Google Scholar
  • Gordon BR, Jerath K, Katona Z, Narayanan S, Shin J, Wilbur KC (2021) Inefficiencies in digital advertising markets. J. Marketing 85(1):7–25.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Hayes RJ, Moulton LH (2017) Cluster Randomised Trials, 2nd ed. (Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, FL).Google Scholar
  • India IIPS (2022) India national family health survey NFHS-5 2019-21. Accessed January 1, 2025, https://www.dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR375/FR375.pdf.Google Scholar
  • Johnson GA (2023) Inferno: A guide to field experiments in online display advertising. J. Econom. Management Strategy 32(3):469–490.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Johnson GA, Lewis RA, Reiley DH (2017) When less is more: Data and power in advertising experiments. Marketing Sci. 36(1):43–53.Link, Google Scholar
  • Johnson GA, Shriver SK, Du S (2020) Consumer privacy choice in online advertising: Who opts out and at what cost to industry? Marketing Sci. 39(1):33–51.Link, Google Scholar
  • Koenker H, Keating J, Alilio M, Acosta A, Lynch M, Nafo-Traore F (2014) Strategic roles for behaviour change communication in a changing malaria landscape. Malaria J. 13(1):1.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Lambrecht A, Tucker C (2019) Algorithmic bias? An empirical study of apparent gender-based discrimination in the display of stem career ads. Management Sci. 65(7):2966–2981.Link, Google Scholar
  • Lengeler C (2004) Insecticide-treated bed nets and curtains for preventing malaria. Cochrane Database Systems Rev. 22004(2):CD000363.Google Scholar
  • Lewis RA, Reiley DH (2014) Online ads and offline sales: Measuring the effect of retail advertising via a controlled experiment on Yahoo! Quant. Mark. Econom. 12(3):235–266. Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Narasimhan L, Srinivasan K, Sudhir K (2015) Marketing science in emerging markets. Marketing Sci. 34(4):473–479.Link, Google Scholar
  • NVBDCP (2016) National Framework for Malaria Elimination in India (2016–2030) (Directorate of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, New Delhi, India).Google Scholar
  • Rao N, Donati D, Orozco V (2020) Conducting Surveys and Interventions Entirely Online: A Virtual Lab Practitioner’s Manual (World Bank, Washington, DC).Google Scholar
  • Sapiezynski P, Ghosh A, Kaplan L, Rieke A, Mislove A (2022) Algorithms that “don’t see color” measuring biases in lookalike and special ad audiences. Conitzer V, Tasioulas J, Das S, Davis J, Firth-Butterfield K, eds. Proc. 2022 AAAI/ACM Conf. AI, Ethics, Soc. (Association for Computing Machinery, New York), 609–616.Google Scholar
  • Sharma A, Rana SK, Prinja S, Kumar R (2016) Quality of health management information system for maternal & child health care in Haryana State, India. PLoS One 11(2):e0148449.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Shawky S, Kubacki K, Dietrich T, Weaven S (2019) Using social media to create engagement: A social marketing review. J. Soc. Marketing 9(2):204–224.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Singh MP, Saha KB, Chand SK, Sabin LL (2019) The economic cost of malaria at the household level in high and low transmission areas of central India. Acta Tropical 190:344–349.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Singh MP, Saha KB, Chand SK, Savargaonkar D (2020) Socioeconomic determinants of community knowledge and practice in relation to malaria in high- and low-transmission areas of central India. J. Biosoc. Sci. 52(3):317–329.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Tarozzi A, Mahajan A, Blackburn B, Kopf D, Krishnan L, Yoong J (2014) Micro-loans, insecticide-treated bednets, and malaria: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in Orissa, India. Amer. Econom. Rev. 104(7):1909–1941.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Thompson EB, Heley F, Oster-Aaland L, Stastny SN, Crawford EC (2013) The impact of a student-driven social marketing campaign on college student alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors. Soc. Marketing Quart. 19(1):52–64.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Tucker C, Agrawal A, Gans J, Goldfarb A (2018) Privacy, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL), 423–437.Google Scholar
  • Viswanathan M, Umashankar N, Sreekumar A, Goreczny A (2021) Marketplace literacy as a pathway to a better world: Evidence from field experiments in low-access subsistence marketplaces. J. Marketing 85(3):113–129.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Wang Y, Lewis M, Singh V (2021) Investigating the effects of excise taxes, public usage restrictions, and antismoking ads across cigarette brands. J. Marketing 85(3):150–167.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • Wanzirah H, Tusting LS, Arinaitwe E, Katureebe A, Maxwell K, Rek J, Bottomley C, et al. (2015) Mind the gap: House structure and the risk of malaria in Uganda. PLoS One 10(1):e0117396.Crossref, Google Scholar
  • We Are Social (2025) Digital global overview report. Report, We Are Social, London, UK.Google Scholar
  • WHO (2018) World Malaria Report 2018 (World Health Organization, Geneva).Google Scholar
  • WHO (2021) World Malaria Report 2021 (World Health Organization, Geneva).Google Scholar
  • WHO (2025) WHO Guidelines for Malaria (World Health Organization, Geneva).Google Scholar
  • World Bank (2022) World Bank Data (World Bank, Washington, DC).Google Scholar
  • Zhang W, Chintagunta PK, Kalwani MU (2021) Social media, influencers, and adoption of an eco-friendly product: Field experiment evidence from rural China. J. Marketing 85(3):10–27.Crossref, Google Scholar
INFORMS site uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some are essential to make our site work; Others help us improve the user experience. By using this site, you consent to the placement of these cookies. Please read our Privacy Statement to learn more.