text: 44% Say Coupons Very Influential in Brand Choice - Marketing Charts
  44% Say Coupons Very Influential in Brand Choice
  Coupons exert a strong influence on shoppers' brand decisions, say The Integer Group and M/A/R/C Research in newly-released survey results [download page]. Some 44% of respondents reported that coupons are very (26%) or extremely (18%) influential in their choice of a specific brand of product. As it turns out, that decision seems to often go in favor of the brand they're already familiar with: two-thirds said they use coupons to buy familiar brands rather than to try new ones. So coupons, in other words, are a valuable way for consumers to save money on their favorite brands.
  When it comes to the coupon itself, the critical attribute by a sizable margin is its value, with 68% choosing this as the most important attribute. (Others options included: whether the coupon is for instant use vs. next purchase; and the store where the coupon can be used.)
  The report offers other insights into how consumers approach their use of coupons.
  For the time being, circulars remain the most commonly searched coupon source, followed by newspapers. Of 9 sources tracked, those were the only two which a majority of respondents claimed to use. Despite the rising popularity of online sources, print still appears to be the primary way by which consumers search for and obtain their coupons (see here and here). Not surprisingly, mobile apps are the fastest-rising source, though still the least-used.
  That consensus is interesting given that some groups of coupons users have different motivations for using them. Respondents from households with more than $75,000 in annual income were much more inclined to say that they use coupons to find the best-quality items (67%) than to use them to spend as little money as possible (43%). But for those with household income of less than $50,000, more are motivated by savings (65%) than finding the best-quality items (56%).
  Some other results from the report:
  Younger shoppers (18-24) are more likely than average to be using coupons to buy familiar brands;
  Packaged-good brands, rather than the retailers that carry them, are perceived as offering the best coupons; and
  A majority of the 18-24 demographic believes that coupons are important when shopping online, but that drops firmly into the minority among older cohorts.