Mobile Coupon Trend Beginning to Pick Up Speed

Mobile Coupon Trend Beginning to Pick Up Speed….from Supermarket News,  of all places.

I’m thrilled to pieces that the supermarkets themselves are seeing the value of the mobile coupon, and even more excited that some of them are using tag-reading technology to implement.

 Unilever and ShopRite are conducting a program in conjunction with mobile marketing firm Samplesaint, Chicago.

In this initiative, consumers use their cell phones to select coupons with “rich images” for a range of Unilever products, and the coupons are scanned at the front end directly from shoppers’ phones. The on-phone scanning capability is what makes this experiment different. ShopRite is limiting the test to a single New Jersey store whose customers are relatively young and affluent professionals likely to have cell phones capable of texting and connecting to the Internet….

…How will we know if mobile marketing and couponing meets its promise? The rates of consumer sign-ups and usage will be key indicators.

Another important factor will be the ability of mobile coupons to support both supplier and retailer needs. The Unilever-ShopRite venture makes good progress on this front by offering not only coupons from the supplier, but also private label ones from the retailer.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Mobile couponing, in our opinion, is one of the most promising opportunities within the mobile channel. Redemption is an issue, as the infrastructure of many supermarkets may not be able to support it – those scanners can’t always read a mobile screen – but per this article, it may not affect all stores.

We’ll be looking for the results of these trials…