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Framing of Location Requests

KEN -18 -1399

Last modified on November 6th, 2025 at 6:35 pm

    Basic Information

  • Abstract
    PxD operates the MoA-INFO platform in collaboration with Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture to provide free agricultural recommendations to farmers via SMS messages.

    Farmer’s location information can improve the targeting and relevance of advisory messages, but collecting accurate location information using SMS messages has been a challenge. PxD tested whether different framings of a location request would affect farmers’ likelihood to respond. Two randomly selected groups of farmers were sent messages asking their location. One message was framed in terms of improving recommendations and the other message was framed in terms of fighting Fall Armyworm (FAW). The response rate was measured for both groups and was found to be significantly lower with the FAW framing.
  • Status
    Completed
  • Start date
    Q3 Aug 2018
  • End date
    Q3 Sep 2018
  • Experiment Location
    Kenya
  • Partner Organization
    Kenya Ministry of Agriculture
  • Agricultural season
    Short Rains

    • Research Design

  • Experiment type
    A/B test
  • Sample frame / target population
    MoA-INFO platform users (farmers)
  • Sample size
    2,887
  • Outcome type
    Service engagement
  • Mode of data collection
    Partner administrative data
  • Research question(s)
    Does the framing of a location request message, in terms of improving recommendations compared to fighting FAW, affect the response rate?
  • Research theme
    Communication technology, Message framing, Service design
  • Research Design

    The first group (n = 1,538) was sent the following message, which implied that the location data would allow the service to send improved recommendations: “In order to make better recommendations, we would like to know where your farm is. What county is your farm in?”

    The second group (n = 1,349) was sent the following message, which focused on the management of FAW: “To better fight Fall Armyworm, we would like to know where your farm is. What county is your farm in?”

    • Results

  • Results
    Farmers were more likely to share their location data in response to the location request message framed in terms of improved recommendations compared to the message framed in terms of the fight against FAW. The messages with the improved-recommendations framing resulted in a 25% response rate, versus a 21% response rate to messages with the fight-FAW framing. The FAW message underperformed in both English (statistically significant at the 5% level) and Swahili (not statistically significant).

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