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ACME, SPARTAN TEST SCHOOL COUPON SALES

Acme Markets and Spartan Stores are testing Classmates, a school fund-raising project tied to the sale of coupon books for packaged foods. The books are redeemable exclusively at the participating supermarket operators.The Classmates program was developed by Visionary Concepts, Pittsburgh, a marketing and sales promotion agency. It is designed to supplant the traditional school "bake sale" type of

Acme Markets and Spartan Stores are testing Classmates, a school fund-raising project tied to the sale of coupon books for packaged foods. The books are redeemable exclusively at the participating supermarket operators.

The Classmates program was developed by Visionary Concepts, Pittsburgh, a marketing and sales promotion agency. It is designed to supplant the traditional school "bake sale" type of fund-raiser by providing schools with books of coupons worth $80 to $100 off on a broad spectrum of national, local food broker and private-label products and store services. The books also contain $10 worth of coupons for free products or savings off a total shopping purchase.

The program operates much the way a bake sale would. Schools take orders from citizens for coupon books, which are sold for $5 each. The schools collect the money and send it in to the organizer, which in turn mails the books to the schools to deliver to patrons.

Schools also receive a catalog filled with 1,500 items that the schools can order based on the specific number of books that they sold. The catalog has items costing from one book to several hundred books and includes items such as computers, printers, podiums, blackboards and computer software.

Classmates is now being made available to schools in the operating area serviced by Acme Markets, Malvern, Pa., and Spartan Stores, Grand Rapids, Mich. And a major nationwide push is being readied for the school year starting this fall, according to organizers.

"The program will be launched again in September, and we are in the process of signing supermarkets

up for the program. We have commitments from people throughout the country," said Ben Del Prince, vice president of marketing at Visionary Concepts.

Del Prince said "several hundred schools" had already signed up for the program at both Acme and Spartan.

Officials at Acme declined to comment. The chain has merchandised its Classmates program through its weekly circular, as well as through in-store fliers.

Spartan Stores views Classmates as "a win-win situation" for all parties involved, said Jann McKellar, advertising manager for the cooperative wholesaler.

"The schools will win because of the benefits gleaned from the books that were sold. Our retailers will win because of the additional traffic that would be going through the stores, and our vendors will win because the consumers have a vehicle that they can use to redeem and receive their products at a savings and possibly try new products," McKellar said.

"The supermarkets benefit from the standpoint of tremendous public relations. They redeem the coupons, and they show that they are concerned about the overall educational process within the schools in their marketing area," Del Prince told SN.

"We also provide to the store reports on the value of the equipment that was earned by the schools through the campaign. This way the supermarket can say they were responsible for providing 'X' million dollars worth of equipment to the schools," he said.