like a good idea, especially in the post- holiday period when we're all trying to save money. but there's some interesting research about the impact of economic troubles for some people, a lot of people trying to save money. there's some interesting new research about the impact of using coupons and jennifer argo from the university of alberta school of business is joing us to talk about some of these ideas. it's not like you didn't do any research. >> it's about eight years we're working on this project. >> daryl: when you went into this, what specifically were you hoping to look at, what were you trying to find out? >> well, first off, it's important to know that coupon redemption is actually really quite low. there's only about 2% of all coupons ever redeemed. and so we were wondering, you know, why are these so low to begin with, and part of the reason is because people are embarrassed to redeem them. it's an impression management issue, you don't want to look cheap in front of others, so we thought if you don't want to do it because you don't want to look cheap, what happens if somebody else does it and you've chosen not to, does it still have negative ramifications for you, and we find it does. >> daryl: stigma by association? >> that's correct. >> daryl: basically if i go in and i remit a bunch of coupons, whatever, that the person next to me -- >> that's correct, looks cheap. >> daryl: how did that work out or how did you come to that conclusion? >> we did a few different studies, quite a few different studies, but in one of them, for example, we had two shoppers that were in a line-up. they were our confederates, these are people we paid to have stand there. and when a third person who was a real shopper joined the line-up, the first person used a coupon, the second person went through, made their purchase, and then when the real consumer actually made their purchase, we had a research assistant ask them after their impressions of the first two people, and they, on a bunch of scales, they indicated that the person directly in front of them who was just what we would call a normal shopper, a non-coupon redeemer, they perceived them as being really cheap. >> daryl: cheap or frugal? >> cheap. it was a negative connotation, not as -- they were the tight wads, they were not frugal and smart shoppers. >> daryl: so why do companies put out these coupons in the -- if only 2% of people are redeeming them, that would seem to be a pretty low level of return. >> 2% but of billions and billions of coupons, it accounts for a large portion of overall sales. coupons we use for a variety of things, one being to have people try a new product for the first time or if it's a product category that people like to switch between quite a bit, they're not loyal to one brand over another, coupons are quite useful in those categories. >> daryl: i'm trying to get my head around it. what use would be, and i don't mean to be facetious, to know how people react, how is that useful for either consumers or for businesses to take some of that information that you've gathered, what use can they make of it? >> well, i should explain that with our effects that we find it happens when it's a low-value coupon so higher-value coupons, the second person in the line is what we would consider safe. they're protected from the stigma happening. however, companies can do a variety of things so first off, they can change the values, make them more worthwhile to redeem them. >> daryl: if you're saving two cents, nobody's going to do it, who cares. >> that's right. you can also have these cards, for example, safeway, where when you go through, they have the safeway club card. >> daryl: and if you don't have it, you really get dinged in some cases. >> absolutely, it's accumulation. when you hear how much you've saved, it's not the 25 cents or 50 cents, you're saving a larger value usually because