04
Sep
September is getting a lot of attention as National Coupon Month in the United States. That’s a great thing because it means that there are a lot of special coupon deals being published and news stories about coupons that are being promoted. However, this month also marks something much bigger than “coupon month”. It marks the 100th birthday of the coupon at least by some calculations.
There are some people who will argue that the very first coupon was created back in 1894. Technically, this is true. A co-owner of the Coca-Cola company named Asa Candler started issuing handwritten vouchers for free glasses of the new soda pop. This was, in effect, the very first coupon that was ever issued by a business. It was a popular campaign too, one in nine Americans got a free glass of Coca-Cola as a result of that coupon plan.
However, that’s not the year that most people consider to be the year of the coupon’s birth. Instead, most coupon historians point to 1909 as the year that coupons started to see widespread use. At that time C.W. Post started using coupons as an advertising tool to get people to buy his cereals. WalletPop points out that this happened in September of that year which means that this month marks the 100th anniversary of the coupon.
The coupon has changed a lot in that time. It’s not handwritten anymore for sure. More of us are using coupon codes and mobile coupons instead of printed coupons. But the basic point of coupons remains the same; businesses use them to convince buyers to make purchases and consumers love them because they help us save money. Even if the dates are a little iffy, it’s worth toasting to 100 years of that!
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