MMM Online: Governors as game show hosts: Are sweepstakes schemes worth a shot?

Companies, including many A-list brands, have been encouraging the public to receive COVID-19 vaccination by dangling everything from beer to donuts as incentives. Get a shot through a state or county health department and you could score everything from an Amazon gift card to complimentary baseball tickets or a fishing license. Indeed, using tchotchkes, rewards and other behavioral strategies to influence healthy habits has a long history in health marketing. But what of large cash payments? Behavioral scientists advised in a December JAMA article on COVID-19 vaccination strategies that “financial incentives are likely to discourage vaccination (particularly among those most concerned about adverse effects); instead, contingent nonfinancial incentives” are preferred. Read more at MMM-Online.