A box of Kellogg's-McDonald's-Hotwheels
Mattel-NASCAR-NHRA Bill Elliott
Raisin Bran. (NY Times coupon, 4/21/96)
From The One to One Future, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.:
A growing number of ventures are being hatched which issue and collect coupons electronically. One company connects electronic coupon printers to supermarket checkout registers. When a shopper's grocery purchases are laser-scanned for the register, the terminal dispenses the coupons based on those specific purchases--mostly for cents off of competitive products purchase on the next shopping trip. Another company makes a simple coupon dispenser that sits on the grocery shelf itself and issues coupons for products adjacent to it. Yet another system comes with a touch-screen video display at the check-out counter that allows a consumer to request more information or additional coupons. Some of these new couponing technologies--the electronic ones--can be linked directly to particular consumer numbers, through membership clubs and Personal Identification Numbers (PIN codes). This way a coupon issuer will know not only that a coupon was issue at the checkout counter, but that it was issued to a particular person. When the bar-coded coupon is redeemed later, the issuer will know the identity of the person it was issued to.
