Role: VP, Product Design - Innovation Team

Introduced in 1972, the Red Plum Insert is commonly found in Sunday newspapers and bulk mail. Having maintained a consistent ROI for clients and steady usage by 60% of U.S. consumers, the coupon book has remained a dependable metric for marketing teams. The "it is what it is" view led to a race for cost-efficiency and exclusivity, resulting in competitors adopting nearly identical low-cost formats. Higher consumer expectations and CPG/Retailer's needs for richer data presented us with an opportunity for reinvention.

In 2016, we set out to design a new product that was like no other coupon book in market.  We conducted focus groups to understand all the pain points of couponing and studied the habits and strategies that extreme couponers employed. We tested and refined the application of imperceptible digital watermarking and facebook messenger codes to enable any page to connect to a mobile experience. Each design iteration was driven by consumer and client feedback. 

The resulting product was branded RP, a shorthand for Red Plum used by extreme couponers.

• high-quality, portable format with perforated coupons

• a firm, short cover that doubled as an edge to tear coupons with, and as a tear-off postcard

• standardization of coupon format and placement

• unique, delightful and seamless print-to-digital experience (ex: online purchase, game, video, custom content)

• digital printing to achieve hyper-local versioning (ex: nearest store, aisle location of product)

• co-op and single advertiser opportunities

RP launched in 2018 as one of the offerings in the Red Plum Connect new product series. Revlon's 'Choose Your Love Story' used facebook messenger codes to launch a discovery experience.