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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 27, 1984)
Odessa r gers uj in d Taco | is too. ; a new[, J Bell’s me Percent, (, Bey also; ^rchamlia vin g senic, drive-tin The , th e passe; e loodrj'i s some jet; ! increase av e mot; | r before,; : change^ 7 can st special onions )| Page 3F/The Battalion/Monday, August 27, 1984 CS& soc Ilf N.P 121 d 31 Coupons used as money savers United Press International Apart 21 ST. LOUIS — A study on the use of coupons as a marketing tool has Jf| found more and more consumers sing the money savers, including a rowing number of men and teen- gers. “In the past, coupons were tar- eted to women,” said Deborah ozsa, a member of the study team. fNow, some are targeted to men, •llfEike coupons for beer. In the past, what macho beer drinker would have used a coupon to buy beer?” Bozsa works for the St. Louis ad- ertising firm of D’Arcy MacManus Masius, which undertook the study at the request of clients seeking more information on who uses coupons. J “Coupon use just seems to keep pncreasing,” said Bozsa. There were 1,786 coupons per family available in 1983 — a 20 percent increase over the previous year. ; The study group said inflation and competition apparently are re sponsible for the increased use of Coupons by shoppers and businesses. I “In the past, when you went to |)uy tissue, you bought Kleenex,” aid Jim Porcarelli, who worked on be study. “When you wanted to buy ioda, particularly in the South, you bought Coke. “Now, in every category, there are all kinds of brands. Because of infla tion and competition, there are more coupons.” The group found that businesses which previously did not use cou pons to attract customers are turn ing to them now. “One of the first businesses to purchase our report was a local dry cleaner,” Porcarelli said. “People are looking for an edge over the compe tition. They’re looking at things like couponing.” Because more men are shopping either for themselves or for their families, the study found businesses are targeting coupons at the male side of me family. “More teens shop for households now, too,” Bozsa said. “There are more food-type coupons in mag azines like Seventeen and Young Miss so brand loyalty is developed from the start.” However, the bull’s-eye of coupon targeting still is women. The study found that homemak ers between the ages of 31 and 60 who spend $51 or more per week on groceries for a household of three to six members are most likely to use coupons. The group also deter mined coupon use increases with ed ucation and income level. “Higher-income people have much greater exposure to coupons,” said group member Mary Jo Ander son. “Sometimes lower income groups are excluded from the target audience.” Anderson said many coupons are distributed through newspapers and magazines, which are more typically bought by higher-income people. Also, advertisers who mail coupon flyers or who have coupons in direct mail services such as the Carol Wright coupon package are more likely to target higher-income peo ple. Porcarelli said the study group predicts coupons will begin appear ing in many other places. “We’re going to see more and more vehicles for coupons,” Porca relli said. “Coupon mailers even tually may be included in the gas bill, the electric bill, the phone bill. Com panies may look on coupon mailers as a way to help defray the cost of billing. “Even now, if a major department store mails a bill, it may send a cou pon, too.” Credit card companies are joining the coupon onslaught. T 1 ers in some Dallas supermarkets can activate a computer by placing either an identification card or a credit card in a slot. The screen then shows the customer which coupons are available, and their expiration date. By pressing buttons, customers can select the coupons they want. “The identification card the cus tomer is issued fills in demographic information, which is collected in the machine,” said Bozsa. “The man ufacturer gets more information that way.” Conservation is happy medium By SUZANNA YBARRA Reporter Picture this: someone drenched ith sweat fanning himself with a japer fan made from notebook pa per and smiling at a $25 electric bill. Or picture this: someone selling textbooks in the middle of the se mester because the electric bill was too high, and selling the books is the >nly way to pay it. There is a happy medium: energy conservation. Conserving energy doesn’t mean doing without life’s little pleasures, particuarly the electric ones. It just means being careful those comforts don’t cost an arm or a leg, or text books. Sometimes it takes spending money to save money. Connie Gus- tavus and her husband Joe are re modeling their home in Bryan to save energy. “We’ve just put new windows in because the one’s before leaked really badly Mrs. Gustavus said. “We’re lowering our ceilings and adding more insulation, we’ve got ten-foot high ceilings.” Although she doesn’t have an air conditioner right now, Mrs. Gusta vus said she and her husband have decided how they are going to run the air conditioner once it is in stalled. “We’re only going to use it as nec essary — when it’s so hot you can’t move,” said Mrs. Gustavus, who is a bookeeper at University Bookstore. She said the air conditioner will be turned off, or turned up, when the house is empty and at night, when it’s cooler. Mrs. Gustavus and her husband have a new water bed also that helps keep them cool at night in the sum mer and warm during the winter. Knowing how much electricity an appliance uses and how much it costs to use it can be helpful in saving en ergy. For example: a window air SCRIPTURE HAVEN, Inc CHRISTIAN SUPPLY 696-7434 Shiloh Place 764-1069 Post Oak Mall Two College Station Stores (see our ad in the yellow pages) OTO PLANNED PARENTHOOD FOR... • Pap Smears • Counseling • Natural Family Planning • Pregnancy Confirmation and Option Counseling And Birth Control Vaginitis Screening and Treatment Venereal Disease: Screening and Treatment Patient Education • The Pill • The Diaphragm Screening For: • The IUD • Foam and Condoms • The Sponge • Breast and Cervical Cancer • Kidney Disease Flypertension Anemia Sickle Cell Disease Confidential, Quality Service, Low Cost-Medicaid Accepted CALL Planned Parenthood Brazos County Clinic 303 College Main 846-1744 Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, Inc. conditioner uses 750 to 1500 watts per hour while a fan uses 100 watts. The cost of operating an appli ance each month can be figured by multiplying the wattage of tne appli ance by the hours it is used for a month. Multiply that answer by te rate (cents per killowatt hour). Using the formula above, an air conditioner used eight hours a day for 30 days each month would cost about $51 for a year. In contrast, a fan used the same amount of time would cost about $34 for a year. If there is a cool breeze outside, open a window; it’s the cheapest way to cool down. The same breeze that’s cooling the inside of the house could be drying blue jeans just as cheaply. A clothes dryer using an average 5,000 watts an hour costs about $7 a month if used eight times. Don’t leave clothes left sitting in the dryer becoming wrinkled, an iron uses 1,100 watts and hour, that’s $7 a month HER EYES SAY YES, AND HER UPS SAY., KKY PM lO Bryan/College Station's newest sound - worth waiting for.