Los Angeles based The Benites Group is looking to revive a program called LatinCoupon which it ran in the Los Angeles area in 2001 and early 2002. The program included 500,000 bound FSI packets – 120,000 were distributed in Friday editions of leading Hispanic newspapers such as La Opinion; 130,000 were delivered directly to homes with zip codes in areas with large Hispanic populations by direct mailer Donations Direct; and 250,000 were handed out by Benites Group staff after Sunday mass at churches in Hispanic neighborhoods. Manufacturers, such as Kraft and Procter & Gamble, sponsored the coupon program and donated a percentage of each coupon to a local parish or community organization. NCH acted as the coupon clearing house. The program was discontinued in early 2003 when several church scandals broke out across the U.S.
Joe Benites, CEO of The Benites Group, tells Portada® that he expects to relaunch the program before the end of the year. The direct mail portion will be operated by Los Angeles based direct mailer Mailpac. Benites expects NCH to act as the redemption house. There are 295 parishes in Southern California, and 195 of them are Spanish-speaking. The average size of a parish is 2,000. Research has shown that coupons that support a social cause have a higher than average redemption rate. Therefore advertisers, mostly CPG companies, tend to pay higher CPMs.
