CHICAGO, CAMBRIDGE, Mass., ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., and EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Groupon and Incentive Targeting, Inc. today announced that they are partnering with SUPERVALU INC. (NYSE: SVU) and Unilever (NYSE: UN, UL) to bring social buying to grocery shopping in Groupon’s home city of Chicago. With this announcement, Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, becomes the first global CPG company to allow consumers to buy its products through Groupon and pick up their deal at their neighborhood grocery store.
Through Unilever’s “Summer of Ice Cream” program, shoppers buy $15 worth of their favorite Ben & Jerry’s®, Popsicle®, Good Humor®, Breyers® and Klondike® products for only $9 on Groupon.com – a 40% discount – and then select and pick up their items at any JEWEL-OSCO location. The company, which is one of the leading grocery retailers in the Chicago area, is the first grocery chain in the SUPERVALU family of stores to offer in-store redemption with Groupon. JEWEL-OSCO is also the first Chicago-area grocery retailer to participate in the program, which became available on www.groupon.com/chicago today.
“We think this is a fabulous deal and a great way to let our consumers bring home a selection of their favorite ice cream in the heat of the summer, as well as to introduce new consumers to our products,” said Marc Shaw, Director of Shopper Marketing for Unilever North America.
For this Unilever offer, a shopper purchases the deal on Groupon.com and enters their JEWEL-OSCO Preferred Customer Card® number. If the shopper does not have a Preferred Customer Card, they are immediately invited to sign up online. Once the Groupon purchase is complete, the deal value is digitally loaded onto the shopper’s loyalty card. When the shopper purchases their ice cream at a JEWEL-OSCO store and scans their Preferred Customer Card at check-out, the deal is automatically credited on their bill.
“JEWEL-OSCO has been serving the Chicago area for over a century, and we are thrilled to begin testing Groupons for grocery in Groupon’s hometown,” said Kat Kozitza, SUPERVALU’s Director of Interactive and Direct Mail Marketing. “As one of the leading retail grocery chains in Chicago, JEWEL-OSCO offers an extremely convenient way for shoppers to pick up their Groupon deals, which will offer great savings and value to our loyal shoppers.”
“We are excited to partner with Unilever and SUPERVALU to bring this ideal summertime option to shoppers in the Chicago market” said Darren Schwartz, SVP of Sales at Groupon. “We look forward to continuing to work with Incentive Targeting to introduce the Groupon model to new partners across the grocery industry and pass on these unbeatable deals to our subscribers.”
“We are very pleased to continue working with Groupon to bring social buying to the grocery retail market, now with our second chain,” said Win Burke, President and CEO of Incentive Targeting. “Using the combined Groupon and Incentive Targeting system, CPGs like Unilever and grocery companies like SUPERVALU can deliver great offers to their shoppers, measure the effectiveness in real time, and follow up with highly desirable shoppers with attractive targeted programs.”
About Groupon
Groupon, launched in November 2008 in Chicago, features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, eat, see and buy in 43 countries around the world. Groupon uses collective buying power to offer huge discounts and provide a win-win for business and consumers, delivering more than 1,000 daily deals globally. To subscribe for the best deals in your city, visit http://www.groupon.com. To learn how to become a featured business, visit http://www.grouponworks.com.
About Incentive Targeting
Incentive Targeting, located in Cambridge, MA, helps retailers and brands understand and change shopper behavior. The company provides a self-service Web-based application to create, manage, and measure behaviorally-targeted promotions across a growing network of retailers. Using its industry-leading analytics and software, brands and chains can collaborate around shopper insights, and marketing managers can target shoppers and create promotions in minutes instead of weeks or months. For more information, visit www.incentivetargeting.com.
About SUPERVALU INC.
SUPERVALU INC. is one of the largest companies in the U.S. grocery channel with annual sales of approximately $38 billion. SUPERVALU serves customers across the United States through a network of approximately 4,294 stores composed of 1,114 traditional retail stores, including 805 in-store pharmacies; 1,280 hard-discount stores, of which 899 are operated by licensee owners; and 1,900 independent stores serviced primarily by the company’s traditional food distribution business. SUPERVALU has approximately 140,000 employees. For more information about SUPERVALU visit www.supervalu.com.
About Unilever North America
Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with strong operations in more than 100 countries and sales in 180. With products that are used over two billion times a day around the world, we work to create a better future every day and help people feel good, look good and get more out of life with brands and services that are good for them and good for others. In the United States, Canada and the Greater Caribbean (Trinidad & Tobago, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) the portfolio includes brand icons such as: Axe, Becel, Ben & Jerry’s, Bertolli, Blue Band, Breyers, Caress, Consort For Men, Country Crock, Degree, Dove personal care products, fds, Good Humor, Hellmann’s, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!, Just for Me!, Klondike, Knorr, Lever 2000, Lipton, Motions, Nexxus, Noxzema, OMO, Pond’s, Popsicle, Promise, Q-Tips, Ragu, Skippy, Slim-Fast, Soft & Beautiful, St. Ives, Suave, tcb, TIGI, TRESemmé, Vaseline, and Wish-Bone. All of the preceding brand names are registered trademarks of the Unilever Group of Companies. Dedicated to serving consumers and the communities where we live, work and play, Unilever employs more than 13,000 people across North America – generating nearly $10 billion in sales in 2010. For more information, visit www.unileverusa.com, www.unilever.ca, or www.unilevercaribbean.com.