Coupon Activity Up 10% in 2010

 

Free standing insert (FSI) coupon activity in the first half of 2010 is up 10.1 percent over the same period last year. While digital couponing is also up, digital coupons aren’t pushing printed coupons out of the way yet, and that’s good news for newspapers.

According to this Kantar Media data, the increase so far this year is the biggest increase for the first half of the year since 2004. More than $243 billion in consumer incentives dropped during the first six months of 2010 on more than 55 billion coupons within 113 billion FSI pages. That’s a lot of coupons!

Consumer packaged goods make up nearly two thirds of coupons distributed, followed by direct response and franchised businesses.

Coupon redemption is up 7.9 percent, according to NCH Marketing Services, as consumers still look to save money in the current economy. The health and beauty care segment saw the largest growth in redemption at more than 12 percent.

Online coupons are growing, but still a small percentage of coupons in the market. The vast majority of coupons are still delivered via FSIs  and that’s good news for newspapers, as consumers still turn to their local newspaper for their coupon fix.