Some people don’t like using coupons because they think it makes them look cheap. Some people don’t like going to a chain hair salon because they think it’s too cheap to be any good.
So would a “real dumb coupon” that adds $50 to their total change their minds?
Probably not, strictly speaking. But Supercuts hopes that a tongue-in-cheek new ad campaign featuring the world’s worst coupon will help drive home the message that there’s no need to overpay for a haircut.
Supercuts’ own chief digital officer John Davi stars in a commercial in which he calls out critics for their “super mean” comments about Supercuts. “It seems some of you won’t step foot in one of our salons unless it costs way more than it should,” he says of critics who think a haircut that’s not expensive can’t possibly be good.
So the solution? Make a Supercuts haircut more expensive. A lot more expensive.
Supercuts’ “Real Dumb Coupon” will “let you add $50 to the price of our reliable, valuable haircuts,” explains a corresponding website, realdumbcoupon.com. “Why? Because we’d hate for you to miss out on a great haircut simply because it didn’t cost enough.”
The website invites you to share the coupon “if you know someone who needs to pay more to feel better.” And there are no restrictions on the Real Dumb Coupon – it never expires, it’s “totally transferable,” can “totally be reproduced or exchanged,” and you can even “stack two, three, four coupons for an extra dumb price.”
If you prefer more traditional coupons, ones that actually deduct money from a purchase rather than add to it, you can sign up on the site to receive a coupon via email that will take $2 off a Supercuts haircut – for real.
The dumb-coupon campaign is “a stupid idea,” Davi acknowledged in an interview with the industry publication AdAge. “But it’s undergirded by a truth, which is that a good cohort of non-Supercuts guests think $65 or $75 is what they should be paying for a haircut every four, five, six weeks,” when Supercuts charges much less.
The other challenge is to encourage people not to wait even longer than four, five, six weeks between haircuts. Business at Supercuts hasn’t quite bounced back from the Covid pandemic, when most everyone’s hair grew shaggy, some cut their hair at home, and a lot of people learned to live without regular professional cuts.
That’s part of the reason Supercuts introduced a new loyalty program last month. Supercuts Rewards allows members to get early access to promotions, and earn points that can be redeemed for discounts and free haircuts.
“These are small things designed to say, ‘Get your butts back to Supercuts and do it on a regular basis,'” Davi said. “It’s hard to just go out there and say, ‘Hey, we give a great haircut for a pretty good price.’ Nobody cares.” The new ad campaign, featuring the eye-catching but far-from-tempting coupon, “is something where people will hopefully care.”
So let someone else use this “Real Dumb Coupon” to pay $50 more for their next haircut. As for the rest of us, Supercuts calls its coupon “an offer you can refuse. In fact, it’s an offer you absolutely should.” And if not using the coupon makes you feel like you’re saving $50 every time you visit Supercuts – then for this unusual ad campaign, it’s mission accomplished.
