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Good practice Imported

Face-to-Face vs WhatsApp Nudges — SEBRAE's Formalization Trial in Rio de Janeiro's Complexo Maré

Brazil · Rio de Janeiro · See the Brazil profile · See the Rio de Janeiro profile

Evidence: Randomised controlled trial Top 19% 81/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

SEBRAE, FGV and GRADE ran a four-arm field trial with 790 informal microentrepreneurs in Rio's Complexo Maré favela (2018). In-person visits with follow-up support raised formalization by ~5 points; WhatsApp reminders raised awareness but not formalization.

790 microentrepreneurs
Sample size (2018)
+5 percentage points
Formalization increase (in-person visit + follow-up vs control) (2018)

Details

Maturity
Pilot
Promoter
SEBRAE (Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service), with FGV and GRADE
Period
March–October 2018
Keywords
SME formalization, business support, behavioural public administration

Context

Complexo Maré is a low-income community in Rio de Janeiro with a large population of informal microentrepreneurs who are eligible for, but not enrolled in, Brazil's subsidised MEI formalization programme.

Objectives

Test whether costly in-person outreach or low-cost WhatsApp messaging is more effective at increasing formalization among informal microentrepreneurs.

Activities

SEBRAE, together with researchers from Fundação Getulio Vargas and GRADE (Peru), ran a field experiment between March and October 2018 with 790 informal microentrepreneurs in Complexo Maré. Businesses were randomised across four groups, from a control group to one receiving an in-person visit from trained field staff explaining the MEI programme and offering follow-up help from the local SEBRAE office.

Results

The in-person visit with the offer of follow-up technical assistance increased formalization rates by approximately 5 percentage points relative to control, with larger effects among entrepreneurs with lower incomes and less education. Low-cost WhatsApp messages describing the same programme raised entrepreneurs' knowledge of it but produced no measurable increase in formalization.

Conclusions

The null result for WhatsApp messaging is itself an important, honestly-reported finding: cheap digital nudges did not substitute for costlier face-to-face assistance in this setting, so agencies hoping to scale formalization support cheaply through messaging alone should not expect it to work without the human follow-up.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — Costed comparison of a higher-cost in-person-plus-follow-up channel against a low-cost WhatsApp messaging channel; the in-person channel required trained field staff and local office capacity.
Time to results
Short (< 1 year) — Field experiment ran March–October 2018 (eight months) in Complexo Maré, Rio de Janeiro.
Staffing & skills
SEBRAE trained field staff conducting in-person visits, SEBRAE local office follow-up technical assistance, Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) and GRADE (Peru) as research partners

Conditions for success

  • In-person visit combined with an offer of follow-up technical assistance from the local SEBRAE office, not a one-off visit
  • Larger effects concentrated among lower-income, less-educated entrepreneurs, suggesting targeting toward the hardest-to-reach

Common failure modes

  • Low-cost WhatsApp messaging alone raised awareness of the formalization programme but produced no measurable increase in formalization — cheap digital nudges did not substitute for costlier face-to-face assistance

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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