Our History ... In Artwork
October of 1996 - Our First Day Online
Including The Birth of Coupon-Joe
CouponPages.Com is one of the Internet's oldest and most respected printable coupon sites.
Joe Crescenzi, our founder, originally launched the site in 1996 under the domain
Web-Coupons.Com. In 1996, if you actually had access to the Internet and visited Web-Coupons.Com, you would've seen this historic image:
Our Original Home Page... Contained only this image... and nothing else.
|
On that first day, if you clicked on that banner, you would be brought to a sample coupon with the following greeting:
The birth of Coupon-Joe and our Original Slogan, "Now Cut That Out!"
|
Our First Few Weeks
New Domains & Our First Logo
A week or two later, Joe decided to reserve a few alternative domain names like
Coupons-Online.Com and
Internet-Coupons.Com, and then he combined them into a newer logo that blended all those elements together. This was the actual working sketch for the first true logo design:
First prototype logo for the new name... Coupons-Online.Com
|
Shortly after that, some new font ideas were added and another prototype was born:
The Second Prototype... better fonts, but still something is missing...
|
Tweaked for a bit... added some color.
|
Seeking Coupons
Our Original Focus Was on Supermarket Coupons
Our original focus was for coupons that could be used in the supermarket, so initially our focus was to pitch the concept of online coupons to product manufacturers. Some brochures and media kits were sent out as feelers with an example printable coupon for a fictional product called "Captain Munchie" on the cover.
Captain Munchie Sample Coupon...
|
Logo in hand, it was now time to start signing up merchants to put their coupons online, so our first REAL coupon was posted on the site, which was a coupon we created to give our advertisers a discount on their listing costs.
Our First Coupon... For Our Avertisers!
|
Still no other coupons for our audience... but we posted a teaser...
|
Shifting To Local Coupons
Opening Up the Site to Local Merchants
At that time, the system for handling redemptions of manufacturers coupons in supermarkets was not sophisticated enough to handle online coupons, so our focus shifted to local merchants. It then became our mission to become the best outlet for local merchants to post their coupons. Instead of focusing on coupons from manufacturers, we decided that we could built the world's biggest local directory of coupons. We would seek out every deli, fast food or fine restaurant, dry cleaner, photo center, pool center, plumber, clothing & shoe store, tire and auto center, pizza place and just about any small or large merchant in the world... and offer them a place where they can place their coupons so that customers could find them, print them and bring them into the store.
Unlike a lot of other Internet sites, which were starting to pop up, our site would not take customers away from them and convert them into online shoppers, but rather it could give them a way to use the Internet to bring customers back into the traditional "Brick and Mortar" establishments.
In order to reflect that change, some more domains were registered, including
Dining-Coupons.Com, Shopping-Coupons.Com, etc... including our current flagship brand...
CoupoonPages.Com in June of 1997.
It was decided that each merchant would have their own web-page... a "Coupon-Page" to post their coupons.
The Dining-Coupons.Com Teaser... Featuring the First use of the Word "Swell"
(Notice however, that Coupon-Joe did not say it)
|
Our Transition From Coupons-Online to CouponPages.
|
In June of 1997, our first Branded CouponPages.Com logo!
|
After Some Merging and Tweaking...
|
Having Fun With Coupon-Joe
Coupon-Joe: Reflections of Pop Culture
From time to time, we would change our logo on our Home Page... For example in 1999, we changed a few times...
When Star Wars Episode I Mania Hit
|
And When Austin Powers Came Out... Yeah Baby!
|
Recruiting Local Merchants
Expanding Our Coupon Listings... One Merchant at a Time
With a new direction in hand, we started to recruit local merchants. Our artwork and brochures no longer showed sample product coupons like Captain Munchie, but rather Arnold's Drive-In:
Our New Local Coupon Sample... Arnold's (Try the fish)
|
Rather than the more complex system needed to handle larger manufacturers, our introductory offer was pretty simple... make it free, just to get coupons on the site.
FREE Service... For the first few months...
|
As our list of merchants grew, each new merhant would put up signs letting their customers know they had coupons on our site, so the audience slowly began to grow. So we came up with our introductory price of only $100... PER YEAR!
Our Introductory Price... Still a Great Value at Only $100 Per YEAR!
|
Of course... we did offer our merchants a coupon too... Why not? What better way is there to show them that coupons work!
$100 Per Year... Plus 2 FREE Months!
|
Expanding The Brand
More Domains... and Yes, More Logos...
As the site became more popular, we considered expanding the brand into other niches.
Another Name...
|
The Birth of CasinoCoupons (Coming Soon)
|
Although those logos are now history, they do represent the next change to our logo... the CouponPages Shape!
Will the REAL Coupon-Joe Please Stand Up
(Changing The Face of Coupons ... Literally)
Although we were very attached to the original Coupon-Joe, the face in the logo was based upon a popular clip-art library, so it was decided we should have a unique face.
Our Original Coupon-Joe Was Created From Clip-Art
|
Our New Coupon-Joe Actually Looks Like Joe Crescenzi, Our Founder 
|
Rather than make a sudden change, we tested the logo on CouponsOnline.Com first.
|
New Fonts, New Colors... New Face
|
Which Leads us to Our CURRENT Logo... With the New Shape
|
