Web to wireless to customer: it’s a triple play

Entertainment Publications Inc. is a technology and advertising platform that delivers promotional coupons in a printed coupon book format. It also delivers to registered purchasers of the coupon book and registered Entertainment members via printable coupons at its web site, Entertainment.com. Under a partnership with Garmin Inc., makers of the nuvi 350 personal travel assistant, the company now also delivers geo-appropriate coupons from its web-enabled database wirelessly to subscribing nuvi users, depending on where they—and their nuvis—are.

The nuvi 350 handheld, which incorporates a GPS navigator among other features, delivers the promotions by means of a subscriber plug-in to Entertainment’s discount program, SaversGuide. The plug-in is available to nuvi users who have purchased the coupon book or who are registered Entertainment members. The geo-targeted offer inventory includes more than 45,000 discounts—generally focused on local businesses or local branches of national companies—on shopping, dining, services and hotels. Among local retailers participating in the new program are The Athlete’s Foot in Chicago, Play it Again Sports in Los Angeles, and Ghirardelli Ice Cream and Chocolate in Orlando, Fla.

The plug-in wirelessly accesses the same offer inventory available to coupon book buyers in the book itself and at the web site, but the GPS feature on the device provides a shortcut: nuvi 350 users who buy the book and subscribe to the service are shown discounts relevant to their location without having to punch in their location on their handhelds. That’s because the global positioning feature determines where they are, and it relays that information to the web interface.

To redeem offered promotions, subscribed nuvi 350 users go to the selected merchant’s physical store—the device also gives them directions on how to get there—and present the card they were issued on subscription to receive the discount.

“Our partnership with Garmin is novel in that this is the first time we can offer a GPS-enabled version of our Entertainment merchant database,” says Terry Clark, executive vice president of Entertainment. “Nuvi owners now have access to tens of thousands of deep discounts, and they can navigate turn by turn or step by step right to that merchant’s door.”