How Much Work Is A Coupon Worth?

How much work are you willing to do to get a coupon?  Do you put a price on your time invested in acquiring individual coupons, or do you look solely at the amount of money you save overall?

I've been thinking about how much work any individual coupon is worth since I spotted a rare Mallomars coupon good for $1 off any package this morning.



I was excited, since I don't think I've EVER seen a coupon for this brand of cookies before!  But when I went to the page to check it out, I found the company was expecting almost a school assignment in order to print the coupon.

Basically, Mallomars wants shoppers to do one of the following tasks before printing the $1 off coupon:

• Write a 100-word essay about your love of chocolate
• Upload an image that 'captures the fluffy center of your loyalty'.  I don't even know what that means, do you?
• Or, upload a video that shows you or someone in your family eating a Mallomars cookie.

Now, I consider myself a creative person, but I am not going to put together an ad campaign for a brand for the privilege of printing a $1 off coupon.  If I want something sweet that badly, there are plenty of other options available for less money and certainly less time.

On the other hand, if they were offering a free box, I might be more interested in participating -- the 10 minutes or so worth of work seems like a much better trade off for a completely free item.

What do you think?  Are there ANY brands you would invest substantial amounts of time into in exchange for a coupon or a discount?  Share your thoughts in the comments section below.