FSI Coupon Activity Up 10% So Far This Year

Free-standing insert coupon activity increased 10.1 percent based on coupons dropped during the first six months of 2010 vs. the same time period a year ago, with Target, Kroger, Publix and Ralphs among the retailers in the top 10 for total pages circulated.

This increase is the greatest observed during the first six months of a calendar year, surpassing the second-highest growth reported in coupons dropped of 8 percent in the first half of 2004, according to a new Kantar Media study.

Retailer promotion activity continued to grow, with a 56.2 percent increase to 6.7 billion pages in the first half of 2010. Additionally, the number of manufacturers participating in retailer promotion events increased from 135 to 213.

“Other leading retailers are expanding their use of retailer promotion events, especially within the food, drug, value and pet specialty channels,” said Mark Nesbitt, president of Minneapolis-based Kantar Media Intelligence. “One of the trends observed in response to the declining economy was consolidation of retail shopping trips within the supercenter format. The increased use of retailer promotion events within cooperative FSI coupon vehicles may be an effective retail response to combat the consolidation of trips.”

More than $234 billion in consumer incentives were delivered via FSI coupons in Sunday newspapers, up 17.8 percent from 2009. During the same six-month period, more than 155 billion coupons were distributed within more than 113 billion FSI pages.

The CPG sector remains the largest user of FSI pages, with a 74.4 percent share. CPG had the largest percent increase, up 11.4 percent to more than 84.6 billion pages. Target Corp. continues to lead with more than 1.3 billion pages, up 66.9 percent.

There were 196 new products that delivered FSI coupons, compared with 199 new products during the same period in 2009. The snacks category led with 16 new products, followed by alcoholic beverages, with 15 new products, and cereals with 9 new products.

Nonfood categories distributed more than 92 billion coupons, up 10.2 percent, while food categories distributed 64 billion coupons, up 9.8 percent. Combination/personal products, which ranked first, increased 20.8 percent to distribute more than 8.3 billion coupons.

Kantar Media companies track more than 3 million brands and provide market intelligence to 16,000 customers around the world. For further information, visit www.KantarMediaNA.com.