As part of its package of services under the Microfinance and Health Protection (MAHP) initiative, a global initiative of Freedom from Hunger, CRECER has decided to offer health loans as an add-on to its existing village banking product. The rollout of the health loans presents an opportunity to learn: (a) how best to market the loans to encourage take-up; and (b) whether the message in the marketing materials affects the way in which health loans are used.

A brochure advertising a health loan might naturally have a photograph or illustration depicting a user of the product.  This could be a happy, healthy family, or alternatively a woman in the hospital with a broken leg.  Both pictures fit the product, but psychology suggests that there could be real differences in take-up of the product between marketing that emphasizes hope (e.g., a healthy family) and marketing that emphasizes fear (e.g., a broken leg and the inability to work).  Likewise, the marketing approach may affect the way in which clients utilize the product.  For instance, if clients receive marketing emphasizing preventative care they may be more likely to use the loan to get doctors' checkups for their children. Conversely, marketing materials describing the loans as being helpful for dealing with shocks may persuade clients not to use the loans unless they face an immediate health emergency. Research suggests that hope marketing is best for preventative care, whereas fear marketing works better for diagnostics (Peter Salovey and Pamela Williams-Piehota, 2004). Will such a finding hold in the context of Bolivia, with microfinance clients? 

Working with CRECER and Freedom from Hunger, IPA employs a simple randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of different marketing messages and materials. Village banks participating in the study are divided randomly into four treatment groups-a hope treatment and a fear treatment focused on preventative care and hope and fear treatments focused on medical shocks. Each of the four treatment groups is given notebooks and calendars with the corresponding marketing message. After CRECER delivers the materials to the appropriate village banks and launches the health program, they collect data on who takes out health loans, what the loans are used for, and who participates in the preventative health workshops.