It sounded like a promising idea. Instead of asking shoppers to scroll through pages and pages of indistinguishable printable coupon offers, none of which particularly stands out, how about reimagining the usual printable coupon gallery to sort offers by brands, creating dedicated pages for each, helping brands to communicate with consumers and allowing shoppers to better find the offers they’re looking for?
One printable provider is preparing to do just that – just as the originator of the concept closes up shop.
Three and a half years after launching, RevTrax has discontinued its SaveInStore printable coupon page. It’s been a long time coming – SaveInStore’s social media pages went silent last summer, as the number of participating brands slowly dwindled away. The final few offers disappeared earlier this month, and now the site itself contains nothing but a placeholder logo.
SaveInStore debuted in October 2014, as a way to combat the “commoditization” of printable coupons. “We’ve built SaveInStore because our clients have consistently told us that something significant was lost in translation from traditional print to digital,” RevTrax’s then-Vice President of Product Management Mike Biafore told Coupons in the News at the time. Companies offering printable coupons “are forced to present offers in a uniform template – with nearly all emphasis focused upon discounts, instead of upon the great products and great brands that consumers love.”
So SaveInStore organized its offers by brand. Instead of clicking on a coupon to print it, you’d click on a brand logo, then you’d be taken to a brand-specific page with brand images, messaging and several available offers. “SaveInStore delivers both the unique creative presentation of a brand site and the convenience of a destination digital offer portal,” Biafore said. Clients “have been waiting for this type of consumer portal, which hasn’t been available until now.”
But now it no longer is. SaveInStore “was an experiment that ran its course,” RevTrax Chief Operating Officer Seth Sarelson told Coupons in the News. “We decided it fell outside of our strategic focus from a product standpoint.”
So much for the idea of reimagining the printable coupon gallery then, huh?
Not quite. It’s an idea that another printable coupon provider is now ready to run with.
As announced last month, Valassis is changing RedPlum’s branding and name to RetailMeNot Everyday. The RedPlum Sunday coupon inserts already have the new name and look. And the printable coupons available on RedPlum.com are due to transition to RetailMeNot.com/Everyday later this year. Once that transition is complete, the name and the website address aren’t the only things that will be different.
The site will feature “dedicated brand pages with rich, engaging messaging to create a unique experience for consumers,” Valassis Chief Marketing Officer Curtis Tingle told Coupons in the News. “The pages enable companies to integrate the unique and iconic equity of their brands through messaging, relevant videos and credible third-party articles and blogs with the activation power of coupons.”
Sound familiar? For RevTrax, launching a standalone printable coupon site from scratch that was different from all the others may have been an experiment that ultimately didn’t work out. But Valassis is confident of success because of RetailMeNot’s built-in name recognition. And the brand pages will be “extra content brands can take advantage of,” Tingle said – they won’t replace the standard coupon gallery like the one currently on RedPlum.com, so the changes won’t be jarring to those who are used to seeing things the old way.
Ultimately, the new pages are designed to give brands, and shoppers, more options. Each participating brand will be able to offer both print-at-home and load-to-card coupons. There will also be “dedicated retailer pages,” Tingle explained. “This enables us to give the consumer ultimate flexibility for how they want to discover, engage and shop.”
RetailMeNot.com/Everyday is set to go live “later in 2018”, Tingle said. So when it comes to reinventing the way you select coupons, it may not have worked out for one printable provider. But maybe the second time’s the charm.
