Remember when mom used to cut coupons from the newspaper on the day the supermarkets' weekly ads appeared in the food section. It was usually Thursday, but that varied by city. Not only did the grocery stores have pages of price specials, food marketers placed their ads, with cents-off coupons, in the same section. The editorial content featured recipe ideas and articles about food in general. This was once, one of the biggest and most read sections of the large newspapers.
Homemaker magazines, circulars and direct mail were also popular coupon vehicles as was direct mail. But newspapers carried the lion's share of the coupon business. The purpose of coupons was to entice consumers to buy a particular brand. Coupon values were normally 20% of the products regular shelf price - higher for new products and lower for established ones or brands that were floundering.
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Grocers liked these coupons because they helped move products and they were paid a handling fee for each coupon redeemed. Unfortunately, this lead to some misredemption practices, which were later corrected when cash register scanners were used to read UPC (Universal Product Codes), often referred to as bar codes, which ultimately appeared on coupons. In spite of some misuse, coupons proved valuable to marketers as a means of inducing trial and repeat purchase for their brands without having to reduce the retail price of each package on the shelf.
In the early 1970s, a new means for distributing coupons burst on the scene. It was the free standing insert (FSI). This was a full-color tabloid containing coupons only and was stuffed into the Sunday papers, the biggest circulation day of the week. Traditionalists scoffed at the notion that people would actually go through an advertising vehicle and clip the coupons rather than the food day section off the paper with its editorials and supermarket ad pages. But homemakers liked the idea of all those savings in one convenient place.
FSIs became the norm for coupon distribution as food day sections began to shrink along with the number of supermarket chains. Ad spending for the stores switched to other media such as TV and radio. While the package itself had long been a vehicle to deliver coupons to loyal users, a fierce battle ragged to entice new and occasional users to buy the manufacturers' brands. This led to on-shelf coupon dispensers, in-store electronic coupons and coupons generated through the cash register itself.
The use of coupons began to fall off as other means off promotion became more popular with marketers and retailers alike. Then, along came the electronic coupon, which allowed consumers to use their computers to print out the coupons they wanted, and it was a less expense way of delivering them. As a result of this and economic conditions, coupon usage went up last year for the first time in almost two decades. Coupons have always been as good as cash so long as the brand was acceptable. It's logical that coupon use will continue in the years ahead. But the form is likely to change, again.
Grocery Store Coupons Go Back a Long Way PRINTABLE COUPONS
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