I was sitting next to the VP of marketing for Albertson's grocery store on a flight to Vegas a few days ago. While I was sitting there, I thought of something I'd like to see. I said to him, "You guys have all of my purchasing information since I got your preferred member card. You give me “discounts” every time I purchase stuff, which is fine, but what about targeted coupons? I receive the bundle of ads every week, but frankly, I just don't have time to try and sift through all that. I literally walk from my mailbox to my trash and that's the extent of my involvement with the weekly ads. Since you already have my purchasing information, I'd be happy to include my email address when signing up if you would just email me coupons for stuff that I've already bought, or similar items. That way, your computers are doing the filtering for me, you still get me to come into your store instead of your competitors, and I don't have to spend an hour every week looking at stupid ads, when only 5% of the stuff in the ads are relevant to me." He sounded intrigued, but I'm afraid that generational differences may get in the way of him seeing how huge this is for people my age and younger.

Tags: shopping, Grocery, Food, coupons, marketing