Interact with new groups of consumers
Mobile coupons are conceptually fantastic and have the potential to offer an interesting medium for branding in conjunction with paper-based coupons. Already coupon issuers are exploiting the interactivity of mobiles to find a new group of younger consumers who do not fulfil the typical image of traditional couponers.
For example, mobile coupons have found a niche in ticketing at festivals and concerts, where event organisers can offer mobile coupons to those who want to circumvent the queues.
Quick and highly targeted
However it’s the fact that mobiles send highly targeted messages in a very short space of time that has the most potential. They lend themselves extremely well to distributing short-term highly focused promotions at any time of the day or night.
This tactic has been used at football matches by mobile phone operators to offer free drinks to those fans who arrive at the game first. A promotional number is advertised on the big screen so fans can send a text to it and receive their coupon in return, which they then redeem at the bar on site.
Or there’s retailers like All Bar One, who run mobile promotions offering coupons for free drinks to select consumers. Coupon holders hand over their mobile phone to bar staff who validate the mobile coupon against their database and give them their free drink.
But behind both of these stories lies a hiccup
The technology does not exist for mobile coupons to be scanned at the till points of large retailers. Only small closed-loop retailers can use them. The ability to scale up to big retailers like supermarkets is not yet feasible because of the length of time (up to three minutes) it takes to validate each mobile coupon at the till.
There are also currently no standards for mobile coupons in the same way as there are for paper-based coupons.
Valassis is working with GS1 UK to outline the best practice standards for mobile coupons, and is developing the technology to speed up the validation process so big retailers can accept and scan mobile coupons.
In the meantime, closed-loop retailers are having fun with one of the most exciting promotional distribution channels to emerge over the last few years – and engaging with an entirely new group of younger couponers at the same time.
Back to top 
print this page