What's Advertising Content Worth? Evidence from a Consumer Credit Marketing Field Experiment

Firms spend billions of dollars each year advertising consumer products in order to influence demand. Much of these outlays are on the creative design of advertising content. Creative content often uses nuances of presentation and framing that have large effects on consumer decision making in laboratory studies. But there is little field evidence on the effect of advertising content as it compares in magnitude to the effect of price. We analyze a direct mail field experiment in South Africa implemented by a consumer lender that randomized creative content and loan price simultaneously. We find that content has significant effects on demand. There is also some evidence that the magnitude of content sensitivity is large relative to price sensitivity. However, it was difficult to predict which particular types of content would significantly impact demand. This fits with a central premise of psychology— context matters— and highlights the importance of testing the robustness of laboratory findings in the field.economics of advertising, economics & psychology, behavioral, economics, cues, microfinance

Simultaneous surface acoustic wave and surface plasmon resonance measurements: electrodeposition and biological interactions monitoring

We present results from an instrument combining surface acoustic wave (SAW) propagation and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) measurements. The objective is to use two independent methods, the former based on adsorbed mass change measurements and the latter on surface dielectric properties variations, to identify physical properties of protein layers, and more specifically their water content. We display mass sensitivity calibration curves using electrodeposition of copper leading to a sensitivity in liquid of 150$\pm15$ $cm^2/g$ for the Love mode device used here, and the application to monitoring biological processes. The extraction of protein layer thickness and protein to water content ratio is also presented for S-layer proteins under investigation. We obtain respectively 4.7$\pm$0.7 nm and 75$\pm$15%.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Typologies of Black Male Sensitivity in R&B and Hip Hop

A qualitative content analysis was conducted on the lyrics of 79 R&B and Hip Hop songs from 1956-2013 to identify the ways that these Black male artists expressed sensitivity. The songs were determined by Billboard Chart Research Services, and Phenomenology provided the theoretical foundation on which the themes were identified. Qualitative analysis of the lyrics revealed Black male sensitivity in R&B and Hip Hop to be based on the following four typologies: (a) Private Sensitivity; (b) Partnered Sensitivity; (c) Perceptive Sensitivity; and (d) Public Sensitivity. Private Sensitivity occurred when the Black male is alone; feels lonely; disguises or hides his tears from his romantic partner or others; and expresses a determination to not cry and/or continue crying. Partnered Sensitivity occurred when the Black male encourages and/or connects with his romantic partner, other men, and/or members of the Black community through crying. Perceptive Sensitivity was demonstrated when Black men acknowledge the tears shed by others, and shed tears themselves while being conscious of society\u27s expectation that men suppress emotion and/or refrain from crying. Public Sensitivity was exemplified when the Black male cries publicly and verbally expresses that he does not care what others think of him. Qualitative examples are provided to support each of the aforementioned themes

Performance of Electrical Spectroscopy using a Resper Probe to Measure the Salinity and Water Content of Concrete or Terrestrial Soil

This paper discusses the performance of electrical spectroscopy using a RESPER probe to measure the salinity s and volumetric content {\theta}W of the water in concrete or terrestrial soil. The RESPER probe is an induction device for spectroscopy which performs simultaneous and non invasive measurements of the electrical RESistivity 1/{\sigma} and relative dielectric PERmittivity {\epsilon}r of a subjacent medium. Numerical simulations establish that the RESPER can measure {\sigma} and {\epsilon} with inaccuracies below a predefined limit (10%) up to the high frequency band (HF). Conductivity is related to salinity and dielectric permittivity to volumetric water content using suitably refined theoretical models which are consistent with the predictions of Archie's and Topp's empirical laws. The better the agreement, the lower the hygroscopic water content and the higher s; so closer agreement is found with concrete containing almost no bonded water molecules provided these are characterized by a high {\sigma}. A novelty of the present paper is the application of a mathematical- physical model to the propagation of errors in the measurements, based on a sensitivity functions tool. The inaccuracy of salinity (water content) is the ratio (product) between the conductivity (permittivity) inaccuracy, specified by the probe, and the sensitivity function of salinity (water content) relative to conductivity (permittivity), derived from the constitutive equations of the medium. The main result is the model's prediction that the lower the inaccuracy for the measurements of s and {\theta}W (decreasing by as much as an order of magnitude from 10% to 1%), the higher {\sigma}; so the inaccuracy for soil is lower.Comment: 45 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl

Species sensitivity of zeolite minerals for uptake of mercury solutes

The uptake of inorganic Hg2+ and organometallic CH3Hg+ from aqueous solutions by 11 different natural zeolites has been investigated using a batch distribution coefficient (Kd) method and supported by a preliminary voltammetric study. The effect of mercury concentration on theKd response is shown over an environmentally appropriate concentration range of 0.1-5 ppm inorganic and organometallic Hg using a batch factor of 100 ml g−1 and 20 h equilibration. Analcime and a Na-chabazite displayed the greatest methylmercury uptakes (Kd values at 1.5 ppm of 4023 and 3456, respectively), with mordenite as the smallest at 578. All uptake responses were greater for methylmercury than for the inorganic mercuric nitrate solutions, suggesting a distinctive sensitivity of zeolites to reaction with different types of solute species. It is likely that this sensitivity is attributable to the precise nature of the resultant Hg-zeolite bonds. Additionally, both the Si-Al ratio and the Na content of the initial natural zeolite samples are shown to influence the Kd responses, with positive correlations between Kd and Na content for all zeolites excluding mordenite

Deep-space navigation with differenced data types. Part 3: An expanded information content and sensitivity analysis

An approximate six-parameter analytic model for Earth-based differential range measurements is presented and is used to derive a representative analytic approximation for differenced Doppler measurements. The analytical models are tasked to investigate the ability of these data types to estimate spacecraft geocentric angular motion, Deep Space Network station oscillator (clock/frequency) offsets, and signal-path calibration errors over a period of a few days, in the presence of systematic station location and transmission media calibration errors. Quantitative results indicate that a few differenced Doppler plus ranging passes yield angular position estimates with a precision on the order of 0.1 to 0.4 micro-rad, and angular rate precision on the order of 10 to 25 x 10(exp -12) rad/sec, assuming no a priori information on the coordinate parameters. Sensitivity analyses suggest that troposphere zenith delay calibration error is the dominant systematic error source in most of the tracking scenarios investigated; as expected, the differenced Doppler data were found to be much more sensitive to troposphere calibration errors than differenced range. By comparison, results computed using wideband and narrowband (delta) VLBI under similar circumstances yielded angular precisions of 0.07 to 0.4 micro-rad, and angular rate precisions of 0.5 to 1.0 x 10(exp -12) rad/sec

Local sensitivity analysis for compositional data with application to soil texture in hydrologic modelling

Compositional data, such as soil texture, are hard to deal with in the geosciences as standard statistical methods are often inappropriate to analyse this type of data. Especially in sensitivity analysis, the closed character of the data is often ignored. To that end, we developed a method to assess the local sensitivity of a model output with resect to a compositional model input. We adapted the finite difference technique such that the different parts of the input are perturbed simultaneously while the closed character of the data is preserved. This method was applied to a hydrologic model and the sensitivity of the simulated soil moisture content to local changes in soil texture was assessed. Based on a high number of model runs, in which the soil texture was varied across the entire texture triangle, we identified zones of high sensitivity in the texture triangle. In such zones, the model output uncertainty induced by the discrepancy between the scale of measurement and the scale of model application, is advised to be reduced through additional data collection. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis provided more insight into the hydrologic model behaviour as it revealed how the model sensitivity is related to the shape of the soil moisture retention curve