Agro360: Conversation versus Trivia
BAN -19 -1530Last modified on December 19th, 2025 at 10:39 am
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Abstract
mPower is a Bangladesh-based social enterprise that specializes in technology-based development solutions. As part of its agriculture program, Agro360, mPower sends text messages with crop management recommendations and weather alerts to farmers to improve the efficiency of their cultivation of their crops and to promote practices that mitigate the impact of climate change on their crops. In Kharif 2019, mPower partnered with PxD to test advisory design tweaks to improve farmer engagement with the messages. This trial tested different narrative styles for the voice messages that were intended to capture farmers’ attention, by comparing the effects of messages beginning with short trivia facts and conversational-style advisory messages against the effects of standard messages.
The results show that farmers who received conversational-style messages engaged more with the messages than farmers receiving the standard messages did, throughout the season. Notably, messages that started with a trivia fact increased the pick-up rates slightly but led to a considerable drop in the likelihood of listening to the full message. -
Status
Completed
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Start date
Q3 Jul 2019
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Experiment Location
Bangladesh
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Partner Organization
mPower
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Agricultural season
Kharif
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Experiment type
A/B test
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Sample frame / target population
mPower farmers
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Sample size
2,239
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Outcome type
Service engagement
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Mode of data collection
Partner administrative data
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Research question(s)
Do advisory messages in a conversational style or beginning with a trivia fact increase farmers’ engagement with the messages, when compared to a standard message?
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Research theme
Communication technology, Message narration
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Research Design
By the beginning of Kharif 2019, 4,425 farmers had registered for the service. These farmers grew one of or a combination of the following crops: paddy (T-Aman variety), chili, and brinjal. The Agro360 recommendations were sent to all farmers from July 16 to December 30, 2019. Recommendations were customized according to crop and sowing data, using the information collected at registration. The messages covered the entire crop cycle: pre-planting, sowing, seedling stage, transplanting, tillering, reproduction, ripening, and harvesting. Paddy farmers received a total of 16 messages, chili farmers received 14 messages, and brinjal farmers received 12 messages.
Farmers were randomly assigned to four groups:
Group 1 (control group; n = 1,093): Received standard voice messages.
Group 2 (n = 1,102): Received voice messages in a conversational style.
Group 3 (n = 1,108): Received voice messages that began with a trivia fact.
Group 4 (n = 1,122): Received voice messages that began with a trivia fact and continued in a conversational style. However, this group was dropped from the analysis because of implementation challenges.Sample messages:
Group 1, Standard message: “For aman rice cultivation keep a drain filled with water for 5–7 days after sowing. After 5–7 days of sprouting, 2–3 cm water in the seedbed helps to control the rice field from weeds and birds.”
Group 2, Conversational message (after the characters Ramjan and Kashem had been introduced in the first message, to set the context): “Ramjan: Brother Kashem, I’ve completed sowing seedlings in the seedbed. I have heard there should be space for drainage in the seedbed, shouldn’t it? Kashem: Yes, you’re right. Ramjan, when rice seedlings become 5–7 days old, keep some water storage in the drain near the seedbed; it will help to grow seedlings properly.”
Group 3, Trivia message: “Did you know—there are more than 40,000 varieties of paddy in the world” + standard message.
Group 4 Conversational + trivia message: “Did you know—there are more than 40,000 varieties of paddy in the world” + conversational message.
In order to ensure that key characteristics were balanced between the different treatment groups, randomization was stratified by crop and by planting date.
The delivery reports of the voice messages were used to measure engagement outcomes for pick-up and listening rates.
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Results
Throughout the message series over the season, farmers were more likely to pick up a call that began with a trivia fact: There was a 2.6 percentage point (pp) increase in the likelihood of picking up, over a control mean of a 38.6% average pick-up rate (statistically significant).
Farmers listened to a higher proportion of a message when it was delivered in conversational style as compared to the standard message: Receiving a conversational message led to a 9.7 pp increase in listening rate over the control mean of 75.7%.
Farmers were more likely to listen to the full message when receiving a conversational style message and were less likely to listen to the full message when receiving a message with a trivia fact: Receiving a conversational message led to a 6.7 pp increase in the likelihood of listening to the full message, while receiving a standard message with a trivia fact led to a 25.1 pp decrease in the likelihood of listening to the full message. The control mean was 60.2%.