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1、营销科学与现场实验特刊简介
这篇社论介绍了关于营销科学和现场实验的特刊。编辑们比较了为特刊提交和接受的论文的特点，并为研究人员提供了一些建议。总的来说，编辑们发现在广告和定价领域的现场实验研究更多，而数字是最常见的渠道。编辑们认为，除了估计效果和假设检验之外，现场实验还可以补充结构模型；帮助训练目标定位策略；并为实时，自适应实验的新兴领域做出了贡献。编辑们还讨论了以影响科学为导向的现场实验研究如何在行为研究和市场营销战略领域增强并做出贡献。
This editorial introduces the special issue on marketing science and field experiments. We compare the characteristics of the papers that were submitted and accepted for the special issue and provide several recommendations for researchers. In general, we find field experiment research is greater in the areas of advertising and pricing with digital being the most common channel. We suggest that, beyond the estimation of effects and tests of hypotheses, field experiments can complement structural models; help train targeting policies; and also contribute to the nascent area of real-time, adaptive experimentation. We also discuss how field experiment research with a marketing science orientation can enhance and contribute in the areas of behavioral research and marketing strategy.
参考文献：Nelson, L., Simester, D., & Sudhir, K. (2020). Introduction to the Special Issue on Marketing Science and Field Experiments. Marketing Science, 39(6), 1033-1038.
2、储蓄计划的时间重构和参与：一个现场实验
现在越来越多的美国工人是自由职业者，因此，他们要为自己的退休储蓄负责，但他们面临的心理障碍阻碍了他们为攒足够的钱进行长期储蓄。尽管先前基于理论的干预措施已成功解决了其中一些障碍，但鼓励储蓄者参与储蓄计划对于决策者和消费者而言都是一项具有挑战性的努力。在现场设置中，作者们测试了以一定粒度形式进行的框架储蓄（例如，每天储蓄还是每月储蓄）是否可以通过增加对定期存款计划的使用来鼓励持续的储蓄行为。在一款金融科技应用程序的数千名新用户中，作者们发现每日定额存款（而不是每月定额存款）是注册用户数量的四倍。此外，以更细致的方式设定存款，缩小了低收入和高收入消费者之间的参与差距：当该计划被定为每月150美元的存款时，最高收入阶层（而不是最低收入阶层）的消费者参加了该计划的人数是原来的三倍。当存款定为每天5美元时，参与的差异就消除了。
A growing number of American workers are now freelancers and thus, responsible for their own retirement savings, yet they face psychological hurdles that hamper them from saving enough money for the long term. Although prior theory-derived interventions have been successful in addressing some of these obstacles, encouraging participation in saving programs is a challenging endeavor for policy makers and consumers alike. In a field setting, we test whether framing savings in more or less granular formats (for example, saving daily versus monthly) can encourage continued saving behavior through increasing the take up of a recurring deposit program. Among thousands of new users of a financial technology app, we find that framing deposits in daily amounts as opposed to monthly amounts quadruples the number of consumers who enroll. Furthermore, framing deposits in more granular terms reduced the participation gap between lower- and higher-income consumers: three times as many consumers in the highest rather than lowest income bracket participated in the program when it was framed as a $150 monthly deposit, but this difference in participation was eliminated when deposits were framed as $5 per day.
参考文献：Hershfield, H. E., Shu, S., & Benartzi, S. (2020). Temporal Reframing and Participation in a Savings Program: A Field Experiment. Marketing Science , 39(6), 1039-1051.
3、不能代替真实的事物：现场实验在筹款中的重要性
作者们提出了一个完整的筹款活动决策的实证案例研究，证明了现场实验的独特重要性。作者们首先设计了新颖的基于匹配的筹款呼吁。然后讨论了从标准不纯利他主义模型得出基于理论的预测所需的假设，并就干预措施的潜在性能征求了专家意见。基于理论和专家的预测都表明，通过将匹配的干预框架定为对等资金的捐助者，可以提高筹款绩效，而对其他呼吁的预测则更加模糊。然而，与非营利组织先前捐赠者的自然领域实验结果相反，使用捐赠信用框架的表现要差得多。这一令人惊讶的发现在第二次自然领域实验中得到了复制，以确认基本事实，至少在特定的背景下是这样。专家们对有条件的匹配方案也缺乏共识，事实上，这并没有改善筹资。理论上，此结果强调了不纯利他主义模型和专家意见在预测复杂暖光动机方面的局限性。更实际的是，作者们的结果质疑有用指导的可用性，并建议在筹资过程中对行为干预进行实地测试的必要性。
We present a complete empirical case study of fundraising campaign decisions that demonstrates the unique importance of in-context field experiments. We first design novel matching-based fundraising appeals. We then discuss the assumptions needed to derive theory-based predictions from the standard impure altruism model and solicit expert opinion about the potential performance of our interventions. Both theory-based and experts’ predictions suggested improved fundraising performance from framing a matching intervention as crediting donors for the matched funds, whereas predictions for the other appeals were more ambiguous. However, the results of a natural field experiment with prior donors of a nonprofit instead showed a significantly poorer performance from employing the giving-credit framing. This surprising finding was replicated in a second natural field experiment to confirm the ground truth, at least within a specific context. Experts also lacked consensus about a conditional matching scheme, which, in fact, did not improve fundraising. Theoretically, our results highlight the limitations of both impure altruism models and expert opinion in predicting complex warm-glow motivation. More practically, our results question the availability of useful guidance and suggest the indispensability of field testing for behavioral interventions in fundraising.
参考文献：Goswami, I., & Urminsky, O. (2020). No substitute for the real thing: The importance of in-context field experiments in fundraising. Marketing Science, 39(6), 1052-1070.
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4、名字相似鼓励慷慨：电子邮件个性化的现场实验
在教育慈善捐赠平台DonorsChoose.org（N = 30297）的随机现场实验中，作者们使用了潜在捐赠者的姓名来检查电子邮件的个性化。作者们根据姓氏、姓氏首字母、性别、种族和姓氏原籍国来衡量将潜在捐赠者与特定需要的教师匹配的有效性。全名匹配是最有效的，潜在的捐赠者更有可能打开一封电子邮件，点击邮件中的链接，然后捐给同姓的老师。他们还捐赠了更多的钱。研究结果表明，将具有同样名字的人连结在一起是一种有效的个人级别电子邮件个性化方法。与教师共用姓氏首字母但并非全名的潜在捐赠者也表现得更为慷慨。作者们讨论了如何在营销传播中使用一个人的名字来吸引人们的注意并弥合社交距离。
In a randomized field experiment with the education charitable giving platform DonorsChoose.org (N = 30,297), we examined email personalization using a potential donor’s name. We measured the effectiveness of matching potential donors to specific teachers in need based on surname, surname initial letters, gender, ethnicity, and surname country of origin. Full surname matching was most effective, with potential donors being more likely to open an email, click on a link in the email, and donate to teachers who shared their own surname. They also donated more money overall. Our results suggest that uniting people with shared names is an effective individual-level approach to email personalization. Potential donors who shared a surname first letter but not an entire name with teachers also behaved more generously. We discuss how using a person’s name in marketing communications may capture attention and bridge social distance.
参考文献：Munz, K. P., Jung, M. H., & Alter, A. L. (2020). Name similarity encourages generosity: A field experiment in email personalization. Marketing Science. , 39(6), 1071-1091.
5、关键条件：人们不喜欢公司实验的程度超过不喜欢它的最坏条件
为什么公司在进行实验时会遭到强烈反对？学者和专家认为，人们认为公司实验本质上是令人反感的。在这里，作者们调查了“实验厌恶”，找到证据表明表明实验比其中包含的最糟糕的政策更容易被接受。在六项研究中，参与者评估了公司政策变更的可接受性，或是对其进行测试实验的可接受性。当所有政策更改都被认为可以接受时，实验也是如此，即使其涉及到欺骗、不平等结果和缺乏同意。如果认为政策变更不可接受，实验也一定程度不可接受。实验的可接受性一般取决于它的临界条件——最低可接受的策略。实验并非不受欢迎；而不受欢迎的政策就是不受欢迎的。
Why have companies faced a backlash for running experiments? Academics and pundits have argued that people find corporate experimentation intrinsically objectionable. Here we investigate “experiment aversion,” finding evidence that, if anything, experiments are more acceptable than the worst policies they contain. In six studies, participants evaluated the acceptability of either corporate policy changes or of experiments testing them. When all policy changes were deemed acceptable, so was the experiment even when it involved deception, unequal outcomes, and lack of consent. When a policy change was deemed unacceptable, so was the experiment but less so. The acceptability of an experiment hinges on its critical condition—its least acceptable policy. Experiments are not unpopular; unpopular policies are unpopular.
参考文献：Mislavsky, R., Dietvorst, B., & Simonsohn, U. (2020). Critical condition: People don’t dislike a corporate experiment more than they dislike its worst condition. Marketing Science, 39(6), 1092-1104.
6、揭开面纱：成本透明的好处
企业通常不会披露生产商品的成本信息。然而，作者们提供了证据，说明何时以及为什么披露成本可以增加消费者的购买兴趣。具体地说，基于披露和信任的心理，假设成本透明度代表一种敏感的披露行为，可以培养信任。反过来，这种信任的调高增强了消费者从该公司购买产品的意愿。为了支持这一说法，作者们提出了在现场和实验室进行的六项研究。一项现场实验表明，当存在一个显示鸡肉面条汤成分和餐厅制作成本的标识时，食客购该汤的可能性要高出21.1%。随后的五个在线实验复制并扩展了这一基本效果，为何时何地发生提供了证据。综上所述，这些研究表明，主动披露成本可以提高公司的利润。
Firms do not typically disclose information on their costs to produce a good to consumers. However, we provide evidence of when and why doing so can increase consumers’ purchase interest. Specifically, building on the psychology of disclosure and trust, we posit that cost transparency, insofar as it represents an act of sensitive disclosure, fosters trust. In turn, this heightened trust enhances consumers’ willingness to purchase from that firm. In support of this account, we present six studies conducted in the field and in the laboratory. A preregistered field experiment indicated that diners were 21.1% more likely to buy a bowl of chicken noodle soup when a sign revealing its ingredients also included the cafeteria’s costs to make it. Five subsequent online experiments replicated and extended this basic effect, providing evidence of when and why it occurs. Taken together, these studies imply that the proactive revelation of costs can improve a firm’s bottom line.
参考文献：Mohan, B., Buell, R. W., & John, L. K. (2020). Lifting the veil: the benefits of cost transparency. Marketing Science., 39(6), 1105-1121.
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7、团队中销售人员努力分配的随机现场实验
将具有不同销售能力的销售人员分配到团队中时，他们如何随着同事能力的变化来调整努力？作者们在中国一家大型百货公司进行了29个零售摊位和116名销售人员的现场实验来调查此问题。每个摊位使用基于个人的佣金（IB）或收入分成（RS）激励来补偿销售人员，并雇用四个销售人员，每个班次两个销售人员。现场实验随机分配销售人员轮班，从而外生地改变了销售人员同事的能力。结果表明，在IB激励下，能力较低的销售人员将随着同事能力的提高而从战略上减少努力。相应地，能力较高的销售人员会随着同事能力的降低而减少努力。相反，在RS激励下，销售模式表明，能力较低（较高能力）的销售人员会在同事的能力增强（降低）时增加努力。这些经验结果为此文理论提供了广泛的支持，该理论解释了社会偏好对销售人员的努力决策的影响。作者们还研究了在不同的销售激励下，团队组成对公司绩效的收入影响。
When salespeople with heterogeneous sales abilities are assigned into teams, how do they adjust effort as the abilities of their coworkers change? We investigate this question using a field experiment that spans 29 retail booths and 116 salespeople at a major department store in China. Each booth compensates salespeople using either an individual-based commission (IB) or a revenue-sharing (RS) incentive and employs four salespeople, with two salespeople per shift. Our field experiment randomly assigns salespeople to work shifts, thus exogenously varying the ability of a salesperson’s coworker. The results show that under the IB incentive, the lower-ability salesperson will strategically decrease effort as the ability of the coworker rises; correspondingly, the higher-ability salesperson reduces effort as the coworker’s ability decreases. In contrast, under the RS incentive, the sales pattern suggests that the lower-ability (higher-ability) salesperson increases effort when the coworker’s ability increases (decreases). These empirical results provide broad support to our theory that accounts for the effect of social preferences on salespeople’s effort decisions. We also examine the revenue implications of team composition on firm performance under different sales incentives.
参考文献：Li, J., Lim, N., & Chen, H. (2020). Examining salesperson effort allocation in teams: A randomized field experiment. Marketing Science, 39(6), 1122-1141.
8、跨产品的社交广告效果：一个大规模现场实验
大多数关于社交广告有效性的经验证据都集中在一个单一的产品上。因此，很少有人知道社交广告的效果如何随产品类别或产品特征而变化。因此，作者们与一家大型在线社交网络合作，在超过3700万用户中，对25个类别的71种产品进行了一项随机现场实验，测量了社交广告的有效性。作者们发现，一些产品类别（如服装、汽车和食品）比其他类别（如金融服务、电器和手机游戏）表现出明显更强的社交广告效果。更普遍地说，作者们发现依赖于身份驱动的消费的身份商品显示出很强的社交广告效果。同时，依赖信息社会影响力的体验商品社交广告，其表现并不比理论上的同类搜索商品的社交广告更好或更差。社交广告的效果也因广告受众和他们在广告中的朋友的相对特征而有显著差异。了解社交广告在不同产品中的异质效应，有助于营销人员区分其社交广告策略，并引导研究人员提出更细致的社会学理论对产品评价的影响。
Most of the empirical evidence on social advertising effectiveness focuses on a single product at a time. As a result, little is known about how the effectiveness of social advertising varies across product categories or product characteristics. We therefore collaborated with a large online social network to conduct a randomized field experiment measuring social ad effectiveness across 71 products in 25 categories among more than 37 million users. We found some product categories, like clothing, cars, and food, exhibited significantly stronger social advertising effectiveness than other categories, like financial services, electrical appliances, and mobile games. More generally, we found that status goods, which rely on status-driven consumption, displayed strong social advertising effectiveness. Meanwhile, social ads for experience goods, which rely on informational social influence, did not perform any better or worse than social ads for their theoretical counterparts, search goods. Social advertising effectiveness also significantly varied across the relative characteristics of ad viewers and their friends shown in ads. Understanding the heterogeneous effects of social advertising across products can help marketers differentiate their social advertising strategies and lead researchers to more nuanced theories of social influence in product evaluation.
参考文献：Huang, S., Aral, S., Hu, Y. J., & Brynjolfsson, E. (2020). Social Advertising Effectiveness Across Products: A Large-Scale Field Experiment. Marketing Science, , 39(6), 1142-1165.
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9、推荐奖励规模和新客户盈利能力
经理使用推荐奖励计划，通过奖励成功推荐新客户的现有客户来激发正面的口碑。在这些项目中，一个关键的决策变量是推荐奖励的大小，但是提供较小的奖励和较大的奖励有什么影响？鉴于以往的研究已经研究了推荐奖励规模对推荐新客户数量的影响，作者们首次研究了其对推荐新客户盈利能力的影响。作者们分析了一个涉及16万银行客户的现场实验，并用大约27万个电信客户的档案数据检验了结果的可推广性。在这两项研究中，作者们发现尽管更大的推荐奖励会导致更多新客户的获得，但它们会显著降低推荐新客户的盈利能力。管理者在决定他们的程序设计时需要考虑到这两个影响。
Managers use referral reward programs to stimulate positive word of mouth by rewarding existing customers for every new customer they successfully refer. A key decision variable in these programs is the referral reward size—but what are the effects of offering smaller versus larger rewards? Whereas previous research has studied the impact of referral reward size on the number of referred new customers, we, for the first time, investigate its effect on the profitability of referred new customers. We analyze a field experiment involving more than 160,000 bank customers and test the generalizability of the results with archival data from approximately 270,000 telecommunication customers. In both studies, we find that even though larger referral rewards lead to the acquisition of more new customers, they considerably decrease the profitability of referred new customers. Managers need to take both of these effects into account when deciding about their program design.
参考文献：Wolters, H. M., Schulze, C., & Gedenk, K. (2020). Referral reward size and new customer profitability. Marketing Science, 39(6), 1166-1180.
10、基于持续时间折扣的价格菜单优化：订阅选择性现场实验
订阅服务通常提供持续时间折扣，以较低的每周期成本回报较长的承诺。合同计划价格的“菜单”必须保持平衡，以鼓励潜在客户选择整体订阅，并推动那些够赚取更多利润的合同。由于订阅菜单的价格很少变化，因此仅凭历史价格数据很难对其进行优化。作者们建议企业通过实验和模型共同解决是否选择加入以及有条件地选择哪种计划来解决此问题。为此，作者们进行了一个随机的在线定价实验，该实验将主要约会支付网站的价格菜单的“高度”和“强度”正交化。利用一种新的关联二元选择和多项式条件选择模型，通过哈密尔顿蒙特卡罗（Hamiltonian Monte Carlo；HMC）估计，分析了用户的选择和计划选择决策。基准比较表明，消费者选择的常见模型可能会系统性地错误估计价格替代模式，一个关键的考虑因素是选择退出（例如，非订阅）选项相对于其他可用选项的独特性。模型证实了一些预期的定价效果（例如，在利润率上，提高价格会阻碍整体选择和任何更高定价计划的选择），但也有一些替代模型未能捕捉到的影响，最值得注意的是，与标准随机效用模型相比，全面提高定价的负面影响要小得多。联合优化菜单的组成部分的价格表明，该约会支付网站公司已经把他们的整体价格定得太低，特别是在其最长持续时间的计划中。
