Filed under: Products and services, Google (GOOG), Clorox Co (CLX), Colgate-Palmolive (CL), General Mills (GIS), Procter and Gamble (PG), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Kraft Foods’A’ (KFT)

I love coupons; who doesn’t? They are, arguably, one of the most important marketing tools used by companies such as Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), Colgate-Palmolive (NYSE: CL), and General Mills (NYSE: GIS). I also love coupon distribution on the internet, so I’m hoping a new technology reported on by BusinessWeek really takes off.

A company called Coupons, Inc. has developed a system dubbed Brandcaster. It essentially follows Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) model of monetization. Depending on where you are on the web and what you’re looking at, the Brandcaster will determine if a coupon might be applicable to you. It will then try to get you to access the coupon and print it up. Web sites who use the application will be given a cut of revenues generated from successful coupon printings. So, talking hypothetically, if I’m on a site that’s dedicated to video games, maybe this Brandcaster thing will someday tell me that I have the ability to print up a coupon allowing me to get $5 off a new software title.

If this is promoted properly, and if the value to consumer companies can be adequately communicated, then I think Coupons, Inc. has a hit on its hands. Like I state, people love coupons, and I think they’re more likely to act on printing out a coupon then they’re to, say, purchase a product immediately on the web through a banner ad. I see this kind of advertising as being more effective over the long-term than other kinds of ads.

But, there’s a significant challenge, in my opinion, to Coupons, Inc. and Brandcaster. I’m not sure how it is in all parts of the country, but in my area, there are lots of businesses, including a major regional supermarket chain, that are either very suspicious of World wide web coupons or don’t accept them at all. There’s a good reason for this that probably goes without saying, but I’ll state it anyway: the chance for counterfeit coupons is always there. I think web-coupon distributors are still a long way off from finding quality solutions to the piracy issue (or at least, that’s the current perception from where I sit).

Nevertheless, I think this Brandcaster is neat. Companies signed up so far for the program include Kraft (NYSE: KFT), Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB), and Clorox (NYSE: CLX), as well as the aforementioned General Mills. Apparently 200 coupons will be distributed to over 3,000 websites initially, with hopes that the network can grow to over ten times as many websites in a short period of time. I think this has a great chance for success.

Disclosure: I don’t own any companies mentioned here; positions can change at any time.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 10:24 pm and is filed under Stocks News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.