“Given the extremely high recidivism rate, we reasoned that most of the people who had “liked” a vegetarian Facebook page in the past would have gone back to eating meat.”
What reason do we have to believe that people don’t curate their profiles? That is, is there evidence that people don’t update their profiles as their beliefs and behaviors change?
“The average cost of getting a person in the former-vegetarian community to pledge to go veg (again) and order an MFA Vegetarian Starter Guide was about 2-3 times less ($2.65) than for the general population ($5-$8).”
An alternative hypothesis is that people who were already “veg” wanted to read the guides. Is there any way to rule this hypothesis out with the data you collect at the time people order the ads?
Excellent thoughts here. As I mentioned in another comment, a follow up study could probably handle that second issue by including a question asking if the requestors of the VSG are current, former or (aspiring) new vegetarians.
This would probably shed some light on your first point as well. If most of the people requesting the VSG identified as current veg, then that would indicate either the ads aren’t working at enticing former vegs to try again, or there just aren’t any former vegs in the audience. Either of these would be enough to kill this as a strategy for reengaging recidivist. Although, this would open up the question of why so many current vegetarians are interested in a Vegetarian Starter Guide?
I think it’s a low enough rate that it’s certainly plausible it’s disproportionately current veg*ns. If you see the comments above about identity and why recidivists may be more likely to revert again, I would caution against making too large decisions based on this.
“Given the extremely high recidivism rate, we reasoned that most of the people who had “liked” a vegetarian Facebook page in the past would have gone back to eating meat.”
What reason do we have to believe that people don’t curate their profiles? That is, is there evidence that people don’t update their profiles as their beliefs and behaviors change?
“The average cost of getting a person in the former-vegetarian community to pledge to go veg (again) and order an MFA Vegetarian Starter Guide was about 2-3 times less ($2.65) than for the general population ($5-$8).”
An alternative hypothesis is that people who were already “veg” wanted to read the guides. Is there any way to rule this hypothesis out with the data you collect at the time people order the ads?
Excellent thoughts here. As I mentioned in another comment, a follow up study could probably handle that second issue by including a question asking if the requestors of the VSG are current, former or (aspiring) new vegetarians.
This would probably shed some light on your first point as well. If most of the people requesting the VSG identified as current veg, then that would indicate either the ads aren’t working at enticing former vegs to try again, or there just aren’t any former vegs in the audience. Either of these would be enough to kill this as a strategy for reengaging recidivist. Although, this would open up the question of why so many current vegetarians are interested in a Vegetarian Starter Guide?
I think it’s a low enough rate that it’s certainly plausible it’s disproportionately current veg*ns. If you see the comments above about identity and why recidivists may be more likely to revert again, I would caution against making too large decisions based on this.