An oral history of the Bed Bath and Beyond coupon | Hacker News Reader

An oral history of the Bed Bath and Beyond coupon

nytimes.com

63 pointspseudolus30 comments

Not related to the article. But can anyone shed light on why every other article I see starts with "an oral history of"? If it is written isn't it no longer oral history.

It bugs me, too. Nowadays, "An oral history of X" just means "We interviewed multiple people related to X, and here is a written article containing some of their quotes."

That's a lot different from what the Oral History Association describes in its principles and best practices, where the focus is on preserving sound recordings of interviews:

https://www.oralhistory.org/about/principles-and-practices-r...

NYT is still a notch above "You wont believe the history..." or "Your jaw will drop when you find out about...", but they need some hook to make you curious.

“We asked a professional shopper about BB&B coupons and you won’t believe what he had to say”

“This one weird trick you can only use at BB&B”

“10 things you can do with a BB&B coupon. Number 8 will amaze you”

“BB&B managers hate him”

“BB&B coupons considered harmful”

“BB&B coupons are an anti-pattern”

“BB&B coupons now available on npm”

“BB&B coupons with Tensor Flow”

“CSS-only BB&B coupons”

“BB&B coupons in 6 lines of JavaScript”

“Paul Graham on BB&B coupons”

A new one I have seen recently: "BB&B has fixed the worst thing about coupons"

"I wrote a BB&B coupon scraper in Rust"

And you won't believe how safe those coupons are

“Fast lightweight BB&B coupons library in Go”

“BB&B coupons using an ESP8266”

Things programmers believe about BB&B coupons

Managing your BB&B coupons with Emacs & org-mode

Store your BB&B coupons in this new type of online notebook I wrote.

> The verdict was still out on social media. One user tweeted "Why do I keep getting these in the mail? Nonsense." Another argued "I quite like these coupons, they're a nice treat."

The jury is out until the verdict comes out.

You're being overly literal. The definition of "oral history" in this context is telling a story through the personal experiences and recollections of people who were there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_history

John Pinette's comedy bit about the ubiquity of the BB&B coupon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in12THaZvss

That was what I thought of the moment I read the article title! "One lady even felt sorry for me. She asked me: 'You don't have a coupon? Do you know how to get home? Is your name in your jacket?' I have money. Money is the original coupon." RIP John Pinette.

"Executives acknowledge that it is beloved by customers, but say the prior regime didn’t use it in a disciplined way. The chief executive, Mark J. Tritton, said during an investor presentation in October that the company is in the process of 'honing down' its use"

Welp. There it is. The article lists out a bunch of challenges for the company in the face of competitors, and executives want to get rid of the most unique, loyalty-drivers, of the company.

Archived link: https://archive.is/upLCg

What is the audience for this article? No, I don't have BB&B coupons (or any coupons) clipped to my car visor. No my mother-in-law doesn't have a folder full of coupons. I have no coupons at all. Was this originally published in some coupon-clipper magazine?

I'm the audience for this article. I upvoted it. I enjoyed reading it and seeing how they did what they did.

I'll read an article like this one to see if I can gleam anything useful from a sales or marketing perspective.

Ah! So they still exist.

I was just commenting on the OP bold assumption that we're all the same, even to the point of ridiculing my mother in law. A strange article.

The article was presumptuous, but it didn't ridicule anyone.

Yeah, just insisted we're all coupon-obsessed penny counters.

Also in Marketing here, and I enjoyed the article as well for similar reasons. Plus it’s interesting to get insider honesty about the coupon’s brand awareness vs profits dilemma.

I've received these coupons in the mail for no apparent reason for more years than I can remember. I assumed everyone got them.

I have never gotten one in my life.

Found the Al Franken of our generation.

I was thinking more Andy Rooney.

Well, if you shop at BBnB, maybe you should?

My story: any time I go into BBnB, I carry a stack of them in my back pocket. One never knows when I might need one, right?

One day I went to BBnB looking for something specific, but didn't find it. As I was roaming the store, I came across a dear friend of mine, who was headed to the Wedding Registry department. She was getting married soon, and wanted to buy some high-end china (dinner place settings, I guess; I'm not into that, so pardon the lack of vocabulary). I went along with her, chatting, catching up.

The settings she selected were $120 each. 8 sets: $960 total.

Then I realized that the lump in my back pocket was a thick wad of BBnB coupons. I whipped them out, and we were able to knock $24*8 + some more off the total price. The best part is, these coupons stack. I think I had a 20% off entire purchase in there too. She saved a ton of money that day (well, she spent a lot too).

There (should be) no audience. It's literally a giant PR piece for BB&B.

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