Eco-Friendly Sampling: How Digital Coupons Drive In-Store Trials While Reducing Waste
Doug Clark
Empowering retail brands to measure media impact against in-store sales by leveraging digital coupons.
Product sampling is a powerful marketing tool, but traditional methods often come with environmental costs. Physical samples require packaging, transportation, and waste disposal, leading to a substantial carbon footprint. Digital coupons offer a more sustainable alternative by enabling in-store sampling through a brand's existing distribution network, which significantly reduces the need for physical samples and packaging.
Here's how digital coupons can make sampling more efficient and environmentally friendly:
1. Reduced Waste Example: When brands distribute physical samples, especially for items like single-use skincare sachets or trial-sized beverages, each sample typically comes with packaging, often plastic, that is discarded immediately after use. This not only contributes to waste but also impacts Scope 3 emissions through the production, disposal, and end-of-life treatment of packaging materials.
How Digital Coupons Help: By offering digital coupons, brands eliminate the need for extra packaging, allowing consumers to try a full-size product that they would purchase from a store. For instance, a skincare brand can issue a digital coupon that’s redeemable in-store, allowing consumers to buy the actual product without generating single-use packaging waste.
2. Lower Transportation Emissions Example: Traditional sample distribution often involves sending products directly to consumers' homes or through third-party agencies that hand out samples in various locations, creating a separate supply chain with additional transportation needs. For instance, a beverage company shipping thousands of trial-sized bottles to distribution centres, then moving them to multiple sampling locations, adds layers of transportation and increases Scope 3 emissions from logistics providers.
How Digital Coupons Help: With digital coupons, consumers redeem in-store, leveraging the brand’s existing retail distribution networks. Instead of shipping samples independently, brands rely on the products that are already stocked on retail shelves. For example, a beverage brand can place a digital coupon online or on social media that consumers redeem at a nearby grocery store, cutting down the additional transportation emissions tied to sample-specific logistics.
3. Targeted Sampling Example: Physical sampling is often broadly distributed at events, in public spaces, or mailed to households with little regard for targeting. A snack brand handing out samples at a sporting event, for instance, may reach many people who don’t care for the product, leading to wasted samples and a higher carbon footprint from the resources used in producing, packaging, and delivering these samples.
How Digital Coupons Help: With digital coupons, brands can target consumers who have a higher likelihood of repeat purchases, maximising the impact and minimising wasted resources. For example, a snack brand could offer a digital coupon exclusively to loyalty card members of a specific grocery chain who frequently purchase similar snack items. This approach reduces unnecessary product sampling and aligns with Scope 3 goals by lowering the emissions associated with producing and distributing samples that don’t lead to further sales.
4. Improved Measurement and Attribution Example: Traditional sampling often lacks precise measurement. A cosmetics brand distributing samples through in-store kiosks may track the number of samples given out but not know how many recipients actually purchase the full-size product later on. Without proper measurement, brands may overproduce samples to ensure coverage, contributing to Scope 3 emissions in manufacturing and transport.
How Digital Coupons Help: Digital coupons enable brands to track each redemption and understand conversion rates better. For example, a cosmetics brand can distribute digital coupons via its website or social media and measure redemptions directly, providing insights into which consumers convert to full-size purchases. This data-driven approach means the brand can reduce unnecessary sampling in future campaigns, thereby cutting down on Scope 3 emissions from excess production and logistics.
5. Enhanced Consumer Convenience Example: Physical samples distributed at events or in stores can be inconvenient for consumers who may not want to carry around extra products. A cereal brand handing out samples at a busy shopping mall, for instance, might see consumers discard samples because they’re inconvenient to carry or may not want to try the product at that moment, wasting resources and contributing to waste emissions in the disposal stage of Scope 3.
How Digital Coupons Help: Digital coupons allow consumers to engage at a time that suits them, increasing the likelihood of actual use and reducing waste from unwanted samples. For instance, a cereal brand could offer digital coupons through QR codes at the point of sale, which shoppers can redeem at their convenience. This targeted timing means fewer samples are wasted, aligning with Scope 3 reduction goals by cutting down on wasted resources across the supply chain.
Summary: By integrating digital coupons into their sampling strategy, brands can achieve a greener, more efficient approach to sampling. These initiatives not only reduce Scope 3 emissions by limiting unnecessary logistics, production, and disposal but also align with consumer expectations for more environmentally responsible practices. GreenJinn | B Corp? digital coupons therefore offers a way to deliver value, reduce waste, and promote sustainability in a data-driven, targeted manner.