Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

So why fix something that not only isn’t broken, but which has been the most significant driver of Starbucks’ top and bottom-line growth, according to their CEO (see one of numerous Howard Schultz quotes here)? Because some clever users figured out a way to optimize their spending to get over rewarded.

Starbucks does sell some items priced at around $1, so a user could have spent as little as $30 over 30 visits to achieve Gold status. After reaching that Gold status, that user would be entitled to any of the most expensive drinks on the menu, like a venti Frappuccino, for free — after only 12 more visits totaling a spend of only $12. So in response, the brilliant change Starbucks made to the loyalty program was to make it spend-based. And they also increased the stars-gathered requirement for a free item to about a bazillion stars.

This is broken on so many levels, but there are already enough rants out there about the new loyalty program. What really bugs me is how they missed a few simple points:...

Tesco announced recently that it had been running a trial at its new concept store on Villiers Street in central London, in which digital discount coupons were pushed to the smartphones of 40,000 shoppers who had ether passed by the store six times during a two-week period or walked in and out of nearby Embankment station.

Customers could redeem their coupons by scanning them at one of the store’s self-service checkouts. Tesco described the trial as an attempt to use the ever-increasing popularity of mobile to address some of the challenges to maintaining customer loyalty that have been created in recent years by the growth of omnichannel retail....

For many, coupons have strange connotations. They're something moms cut out, or they're only used by poor folks or the elderly.

In reality, the opposites of these are true - coupons are incredibly popular among affluent folks and millennials (not to mention every other demographic), and they don't even have to be printed out anymore, so keep your scissors in the junk drawer.

As these statistics reveal, the coupon is still a driving force in commerce that connects people (and their wallets) to brands. People will never tire of saving money, and brands are always looking to bring in new customers. Mix in a decade-long struggling economy, and you have a savings-savvy mindset that isn't going away anytime soon.

Enjoy this collection of coupon stats, which we plan to keep updated with the most current and relevant research on an ongoing basis. If your company has completed research into these fields that we should include, please let us know....