Economics of attention: The gender-based bing communication study on depression

Yulin Hswen, Nguemdjo Ulrich (), Yom-Tom Elad and Bruno Ventelou
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Yulin Hswen: UC San Francisco - University of California [San Francisco] - UC - University of California
Nguemdjo Ulrich: AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LPED - Laboratoire Population-Environnement-Développement - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - AMU - Aix Marseille Université
Yom-Tom Elad: MSR - Microsoft Research, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology [Haifa]

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Abstract: This study examines the impact of personalized gender-based communication to encourage the screening of depression and seeking out mental health care consultation. An internet search engine advertisement was deployed on Bing, Microsoft during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns in the Provence–Alpes–Côte d'Azur (PACA) region in France during the month of May 2020, the height of the France lockdowns. A two-armed study was conducted with Arm A containing a non-personalized (control) advertisement and Arm B containing a personalized gender-based advertisement. 53,185 advertisements were shown between the two arms. Results show that receiving a personalized gender-based message increases the probability of clicking on the advertisement. However, upon clicking the advertisement, there was no significant difference in the completion of the depression questionnaire between the two groups. These results suggest that although personalized gender messaging is effective at drawing in a greater click rate, it did not increase, nor decreased, the conversion rate to monitor depression by self-assessment.

Keywords: Personalized communication; Depression; Bing; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://amu.hal.science/hal-03545595v1
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Published in SSM - Population Health, 2022, 17, pp.100993. ⟨10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100993⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03545595

DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100993

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