CatalinaMarketing Signs Wireless, iTV Couponing Deals

Consumer packaged goods marketer Catalina Marketing inked two deals Monday, expanding its supermarket marketing products to mobile and interactive television.

St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Catalina Marketing provides marketing tools to consumer goods companies and retailers. The company’s products include in-store incentives, loyalty programs, sampling and advertising, as well as direct mailings and Web promotions through its ValuPages.com site.

Now, those products will include wireless and interactive TV. A deal with wireless technology firm Symbol Technologies will enable Catalina Marketing to develop mobile commerce and marketing programs for supermarket retailers and consumer packaged goods manufacturers. A separate agreement with iTV technology firm RespondTV would do the same for interactive TV.

The companies declined to disclose the terms of either deal.

While the companies didn’t disclose their precise plans, the agreement with Symbol — which makes personal barcode scanners and also software for PDAs to scan barcodes — most likely would create a mobile couponing system that delivers promotions or discounts while users are in the supermarket.

“The main objective for Catalina Marketing is to be able to reach consumers in all aspects of their lives and provide relevant and meaningful communications,” said David Diamond, president of emerging businesses and chief vision officer at Catalina Marketing. “This new initiative with Symbol Technologies will provide us with valuable learning within the mobile commerce arena and enable us to develop additional methods for our clients to reach their most valuable consumers.”

The deal with RespondTV is aimed at creating paperless couponing capabilities for interactive TV ads. For example, viewers could receive product discounts by inputting their store loyalty card number into an interactive ad. When the viewer uses the loyalty card, the discount would take effect.

“RespondTV’s interactive infrastructure and transaction processing capabilities allow Catalina Marketing to extend its targeted couponing capabilities to the television screen,” said Eric Williams, Catalina Marketing’s vice president of research and development. “Given the ease of use for the consumer, Catalina Marketing believes in the potential of reaching consumers through the television medium. It is just one more way for us to communicate to consumers in a targeted manner, which has become the cornerstone of our business.”

The deal with RespondTV is a sizable opportunity for Catalina Marketing to expand its reach with one of the larger players in the emerging field: RespondTV’s content and ads are compatible with most major enhanced TV systems and set-top boxes, including AOLTV, Liberate, Microsoft, and others.