Internet Coupon Program for Local Businesses Launched

ADVO Inc.’s Super Coups subsidiary, a direct mail coupon company that serves the advertising needs of small neighborhood businesses, and coolsavings.com launched a co-branded, targeted local coupon Web site.

The site, accessible through coolsavings.com, will provide consumers with online access to coupons from neighborhood merchants and service providers throughout the country. The national rollout follows a successful pilot program between the two companies in Boston last spring.

The initiative will enable Super Coups’ local business clients in 32 states to post electronic and printed coupon offers on a co-branded, locally focused Web site. Coupons may be printed directly from a consumer’s home or office PC and redeemed off-line at the merchant’s place of business, or on the Internet.

Financial arrangements between the companies were not disclosed. coolsavings will help Super Coups’ clients track which offers are most effective in driving sales. Promotion for coolsavings will appear on Super Coups’ direct mail envelopes and in special envelope inserts for over 55 million Super Coups local mailings throughout the coming year. In addition, in-store promotions will be used to publicize the Web site.

Coolsavings’ new SavingsCenter software, to be implemented nationally in early 2000, will further empower Super Coups’ merchants by enabling them to create, track and maintain their coupon offers from the convenience of their own computers.

ADVO is the nation’s largest targeted direct mail marketing services company with annual revenues of over $1 billion. Launched in February 1997, coolsavings claims more than 3.5 million registered users.