SmartSource Announces Free SmartSource Xpress Digital Coupon App For iPhone Coming Soon

NEW YORK, Sept. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- News America Marketing (NAM), the premier publisher of coupons in the U.S. and Canada, producing over 165 billion coupons annually¹, today announced their popular free electronic FSI application, SmartSource Xpress (SSX), will be available for use on the iPhone starting in October. The SSX iPad application was successfully launched in March 2012 and has over 94,000 downloads to-date.

The SmartSource Xpress application, an electronic version of the Sunday FSI, gives shoppers the opportunity to easily peruse high value coupon offers and digitally "clip" coupons with a tap of the screen. Available coupons represent a wide variety of popular household names and have often totaled $100 or more in savings at any given time. Savings are sent to consumers' registered shopper cards and automatically redeemed using Direct2Card™ (D2C) technology at participating store checkouts.  The D2C retailer network is currently comprised of approximately 3300 stores nationwide, with the number of participating stores expected to expand to 10,000 in 2013 in support of the iPhone launch.

"Regardless of how you measure it, SmartSource Xpress has been a great success. The elegant functionality, the advertiser response, the retailer cooperation and support and the consumer reaction have all exceeded our expectations," said Chris Mixson, President, News America Marketing.  "However, since the launch of the SSX for iPad, there has been a clear demand for us to bring SmartSource Xpress to the iPhone.  We are proud to be giving consumers what they want – easy ways to save on the go – by making our coupons accessible to the substantial iPhone network."

New to the iPhone version of SSX will be a coupon carousel to allow for faster offer perusal, the ability to scan a loyalty card during registration, instead of manually entering the data, and a social sharing option for individual deals. Perhaps most innovative is a new geofencing capability that will remind shoppers of the savings they have available when they arrive at stores where they have registered their shopper cards.

"Geofencing offers tremendous value to the consumer, the retailer and the brand by providing a visual reminder of offers clipped to consumers' cards," said Henri Lellouche, SVP, SmartSource Digital. "For years consumers have lamented forgetting their coupons at home when they go shopping. Now, their coupons are always with them, and their phone will remind them what to buy when they approach their favorite stores."

Like the iPad app, the SmartSource Xpress iPhone edition will offer consumers more than just coupons.  Lush digital imagery brings life to every "page" and brands have the ability to present innovative promotions within their offers, including short promotional or instructional videos, free sample offers, recipes, and other promotional content.  The application's coupons and enriched elements are refreshed with new offers weekly.

"Our expansion to the iPhone is a demonstration of our commitment to the SSX product," said Lellouche. "We strongly believe in SSX and are supporting it with an extension to Android phones, as well as a web version, both of which are currently under development. Additionally, SSX will soon offer print at home capabilities to accommodate consumers whose preferred stores don't offer loyalty card programming. SSX is intended to be a modern savings tool to which all consumers have access."

News America Marketing, a division of News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS), also publishes SmartSource Magazine, the Sunday coupon insert found in 74 million homes each week, and operates SmartSource.com, a popular couponing website that allows consumers to print coupons at home.

SmartSource Xpress for iPad can be downloaded for free from the App Store^SM now, with SmartSource Xpress for iPhone becoming available in October.

¹Based on NAM's average number of coupons per magazine, per region, per year.

News America Marketing^®, a division of News Corporation, is the premier single-source provider of consumer marketing services in the U.S. and Canada. The company's product portfolio, marketed under the SmartSource^® brand name, consists of the first branded free-standing insert, known as SmartSource Magazine^®, popular online consumer coupon site SmartSource.com, various in-store marketing products, merchandising services, database marketing tools and online promotions. These products and services allow marketers to deliver a brand message to millions of consumers each month via a network of 1,700+ newspapers/publications** and over 61,000* supermarket, drug, office, mass merchandisers, convenience and dollar-store locations across the country, including Kroger, Safeway, Publix, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Staples, Family Dollar and Dollar General.

* Based on NAM's SSCM; In-store Network as of August 13-September 9, 2012

**Market list effective July, 2012

SOURCE News America Marketing