A new study (conducted in February) by ICOM (via MarketingVox) suggests that the recession or pseudo-recession that we’re in now will boost consumer use of coupons. From the study:

Of the 1,529 U.S. consumers who responded to a recent ICOM survey, 67% said they are much more likely, or somewhat more likely, to use coupons during a recession. The breakdown was 45% percent much more likely and 22% percent somewhat more likely.

ICOM’s nationwide survey of U.S. households was conducted in mid-February. The online research was sent to 40,000 households in the ICOM Shopper’s Voice database. Over the past ten years, the average coupon redemption rate has declined to less than 1.0 percent from a level of 1.6 percent across all U.S. coupons distributed.

Broken down by age, 71% of consumers in the 18-34 year-old age bracket said they are much more likely or somewhat more likely to use coupons in a recession. That compares to 68% in the 35-54 year-old bracket and 63% among those 55 years and above.

Geographically, 70% of Midwesterners said they are much more likely or somewhat more likely to use coupons in a recession, versus 69% of Westerners, 64% of Northeasterners and 62% of Southerners.

Income didn’t make a significant difference to respondents, with 68% of those earning less than $50,000 a year saying they are much more likely or somewhat more likely to use coupons in a recession, compared to 67% for those earning more than $50,000.

Can mobile marketing work for brick-and-mortar retailers? Popeyes just completed a text messaging test campaign in Houston ... and MarketingSherpa has the exclusive results for you. Yes, includes creative samples, notes on how the (low-budget) campaign worked and some fascinating response data charts for you:

CHALLENGE
"The 18- to 34-year-old target is increasingly difficult to reach on TV. The older you are, the more TV you watch. That's the reality of it," says Maria Hale, Western Region Field Marketing Director for Popeyes® Chicken & Biscuits restaurants.

"Men are also more difficult and expensive to get on TV. Men are watching sports, which are very expensive to advertise on with enough reach and frequency."

Hale spends a great deal of time on the road, traveling to meet managers and customers at hundreds of Popeyes across her territory, which stretches from Texas to the West Coast. As she drove to a location one day, a thought struck her -- everyone in her target market has a cell phone.

Could she create an easy mobile marketing test campaign that would engage the younger generation of men?

CAMPAIGN
Hale decided to run a test mobile campaign in one region as long as it could meet her four rules:

o Low budget -- preferably under $5,000

o Easy production -- no complex technology to understand or set up, plus 24-hour turnaround for changes or future campaign rollout.

o No spam -- no messages sent to anyone who didn’t ask for them in advance specifically *from* Popeyes. No sharing of respondent list on the back-end afterward either. Total privacy required.

o Painless measurement -- fast tracking reports without making Popeyes' managers leap through any extra hoops.

After choosing a vendor to manage the campaign (link below), Hale ran a 30-day test with 94 restaurants in the Houston area. Here's how it worked:

Step #1. Offer

Hale used an offer that store managers liked and is a time-tested winner for other media, such as free standing inserts (FSIs) and emailed coupons: a free drink and fries with a chicken sandwich purchase between 2 and 5 p.m.

As with all coupons, it was only valid during a one-month period, in this case Aug. 21-Sept. 21, 2006.

The only problem -- if you're sending an offer such as this to a cell phone, how does the consumer redeem it? People don't have printers in their cars. After discussing the idea with local managers, Hale made the offer redeemable by viewing. In other words, all a recipient had to do was walk into a Popeyes and show the cashier the actual text message on his or her cell phone.

"There are ways to do this with bar codes, but we have different point-of-sale systems in different restaurants, so that wasn't going to work for us," notes Hale.

Step #2. Promotion

The team decided to use the proven tactic of location signage to get the word out. On Sunday night, Aug. 20, teams posted new signs on storefront doors, reader boards (big street signs) and drive-through windows of 94 Houston-area Popeyes. (See link to photos of signs below.)

Signs read, "For great deals, text 'popeyes' to 78247"

Why not be more explicit about the offer? Hale's goal was to measure engagement via the text medium, not the specific offer itself. Also, a more general offer allowed her to change text on the back end, if she wanted.

Everyone who responded would receive the free fries and drink offer by reply text within 10-15 seconds. They did not receive any further text communications from Popeyes after that.

If they texted after Sept. 21, they received a message reading, "We're sorry. This promotion ended on 9/21/06."

Step #3. Measurement

In addition to anecdotes from managers, Hale viewed an online stats report for the campaign nearly daily. The stats she was most interested in were:

- Total number of respondents
- Area codes of respondents' phones
- Day of week of response
- Time of day of response

"The primary thing we wanted to learn was if we could engage the audience this way. Were they interested in texting Popeyes?"


RESULTS
Thousands of consumers texted Popeyes as a result of the promotion. In fact, response was higher than Hale expected. "We were getting texts at 7 a.m. on the Monday the campaign went live. I guess people were driving by on their way to work."

Responses were heavily concentrated by day of week -- with a huge lift on Tuesdays and a far smaller bump on Fridays. This is in direct opposition to Popeyes' normal patterns. "Our normal business is toward the weekend, Thursday through Saturdays."

Daypart also played a big role, with a slow rise during morning drive time leading to three major peaks: at noon, 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Although only a small fraction of tested offers were actually redeemed, restaurant managers were clearly won over by the concept. "They were very excited about it. They observed people were actually coming in to redeem the offer."

Two more results were unexpected -- the campaign itself went viral as consumers forwarded the text message to friends, some of whom were not in the Houston area code. This activity continued for several weeks after the campaign was over and ceased to be promoted … responses were still coming in. "People were vested enough in it to tell their friends, 'It's fun to text Popeyes and see what happens.'"

Plus, Hale was delighted to learn that the engagement continued beyond the initial text. "A good deal of people sent a reply back to our reply. 'Thanks very much for the free offer' … things like that."


Useful links related to this article:

Creative samples and results reports from Popeyes:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/cs/popeyes/study.html


Mobile Marketing 101 - Quick Overview by MarketingSherpa
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.cfm?ident=28540


Popeyes:
http://www.popeyes.com

The study found that, during 2005-07, 56.3 % of students at Ball State would accept ads if they got something free in exchange. Of theses, 37.5 % said they would be willing to accept an ad if they got a free ring tone in return, 21.4 % preferred the idea of a discount or coupon to a restaurant, cinema or supermarket, while 20 % wanted free minutes, upgrades or access to internet and music.

The university study also found that 36.7 % of its students had received a text message ad in 2007, up 13 % on 2005 and that their students are less worried about how a business obtained their phone number than previously. The percentage of students who were said to be “very concerned” dropped by 25 percent while “concerned a little” fell by 33 percent.

The study also reported on student’s use of mobile phones, finding that:

• The number of college students with cell phones with video cameras increased by 33 percent

• Forty percent of respondents sent photos via cell phone or e-mail in 2007, up by 10 percent

• Ten percent sent videos to another cell phone or e-mail addresses in 2007, up 7 percent

• Fifty percent said they had downloaded a ring tone in 2007, up from 8.5 percent

• Twenty percent have downloaded wallpapers or screensavers, an increase of 18.1 percent

• Choose product categories ( as many as you like. Not all presently have products)
• Customize deals by state and color
• Get personalized reporting and account info ( see how much $ you make)
• Edit deal badge at anytime.
• We pay 25% of revenue of subscribed users.
• Request deals you want or search for deals in your neighborhood

You can create as many categories as you like( with different e-mails ) to add to your myspace or blogger websites and any social website, blog software or website. Go to our website to get your own   http://www.text2store.com

1. Be genuinely interested in helping others succeed: What you do speak louder than anything you can say.  Your actions matter more than your words.

2. Expect the very best from the people you lead: Believing their potential. Others will either raise their standard to meet your expectations or ask you to lower your standards to match their poor performance. Always have an attitude of positive expectation.  Provide an atmosphere of the Pygmalion effect; as you communicate your expectation, people will adjust their behavior to your expectation. High expectation, leads to high productivity.

3. Express the potential you see in them (initially): Most often, what you see in people/others determine what they see in themselves. As you are interested in them, they will be interested in you.

4. Establish high standard of excellence: Excellence is the attention to detail that gives rise to superior performance, which leads to promotion in life. Life is won or lost with details. Leaders fail when they accept mediocrity.

5. Create an environment where failure is not fatal: Everyone makes mistakes, but it takes a rare person to ever admit it. Admission stops prosecution.

6. Place a premium on interdependence:  Success is a team sport; no one climbs to the top alone. Let go people who are not willing to collaborate with others. In order words let that person be released to the industry for relocation.

7. Show appreciation to the people who are around you: Gratitude is a fragrance of the heart, while ‘thank you’ is little more than a programmed response.

8. Listen to their concerns and work towards the goals: You must always desire to give a person what they want, not what you want them to have. Try to find out what a person is looking for.
9. Keep your word:  A man’s character is defined by the quality of his actions, not the rambling of his promises.

10. Encourage and exemplify lifelong learning. To get to a higher level in life you must follow the steps of someone who is already there. No man completes his own puzzles. Show people that you have mentors.

There are seven major benefits to small businesses who market to customers through their cell phones.

1. Fresh Market - Cell phone advertising is a nearly untouched market, with very few businesses using the technology.  Because the market is nowhere near a saturation point, consumers remain open to receiving advertisements.  According to "In-Stat" 20% of cell phone users said some form of mobile advertising would be acceptable.  There are 192 million cell phone users in the United States as of 2005 and the number continues to grow each year.

2. Large Market - Over 12 billion text messages are sent and received in any given month in the United States.  Consumers 18 - 35 years old are more likely to receive information via their phone and/or the internet than through traditional advertising outlets such as newspapers and radio.

3. Instant Access - Most consumers keep their cell phone on them at all times and over 90% of all text messages received are read.  Customers can use their cell phone to redeem a coupon or offer at your store or via your website.  As a result there is no added delay in purchasing due to lost or misplaced paper coupons.

4. Qualified Customers - All customers have opted to receive your coupon via their cell phone by using a third-party cell phone marketing service such as text2store.com .  So you know that they want to receive your marketing message.  Don't risk your reputation or a lawsuit by collecting customer cell phone numbers and sending out advertising on your own.  Some customers may forget that they gave you permission to market to them on their cell phone and become annoyed by your marketing messages.  Third-party cell phone marketing companies allow consumers to opt-in and opt-out of the service whenever they choose.

5. Targeted Customers - Cell phone marketing can allow you to target customers by zip code, city, state and stated interest.  So, if you're a coffee shop in Dallas, TX you might target consumers who live in Dallas and expressed an interest in coffee shops or cafés.  Many cell phone marketing companies allow you to track who has received your message and who has redeemed your coupon, giving you detailed and instant reports on your marketing results.

6. Viral - When your coupon is sent to a customer's cell phone that information along with your business phone number and address is stored on the phone and can be forwarded to the customer's friends and family.  For every customer who receives a coupon directly from you may forward that message to at least 10 additional people creating new customers for your business at no additional cost.

7. High Redemption Rates - Traditional advertising such as mailed coupons and flyers have a redemption rate as low as 1%.  With mobile marketing the redemption rate can be as high as 30%.  When Dunkin Donuts text messaged coupons for 99 cent lattes to mobile phone customers in Massachusetts, they increased their Boston area store traffic by 21%.

Marketing through cell phones provides a level of targeting customers and tracking results never seen before in the traditional advertising field.

The Nintendo DS is stated to have influenced the Wii design. Designer Ken'ichiro Ashida noted "We had the DS on our minds as we worked on the Wii. We thought about copying the DS's touch-panel interface and even came up with a prototype." The idea was eventually rejected, with the notion that the two gaming systems would be identical. Miyamoto also expressed that "if the DS had flopped, we might have taken the Wii back to the drawing board."

  Conversion of computer into cell phone advances