The WHAMcard is not just the slim card students pick up on their way to class and use all semester for discounts at their favorite places.
It’s a gateway to potentially every business in Stillwater and new coupons delivered to students’ cell phones whenever they want them.
Jeff Lerner, WHAMcard and WHAMtext co-founder, said the choices WHAMtext provides businesses and customers make using it a good deal.
“People see it and say, ‘Oh, it’s a WHAMcard,’ and may not read the card and see the changes,” Lerner said. “Qdoba, Chick-Fil-A and Edge Planning are places that aren’t on the WHAMcard, but you can text [their names] for a coupon from there, and we’re adding businesses all the time, so you’re not limited to the physical space on the card.”
Lerner said WHAMtext is still in the testing phase but all its features should be available by the end of this week.
Users text business or coupon requests to the service at 469426 (GoWHAM) with a business or product name, along with the code, “OKSTATE,” and get a reply message with a coupon that expires that day.
Lerner said the WHAM-text idea came from a conversation he had with his WHAMcard partner, Matt Whitney, about improving the card. “I was in the parking lot of Klip It Up salon in the WHAMvan, and I was on the phone with Matt,” Lerner said. “We were talking about technology and how to make [the card] better, and one of us said, ‘What if we converted a coupon to a text message?’”
Lerner and Whitney then designed a system to deliver local coupons to the eight college campuses using WHAMtext — Kansas State, University of Kansas, Texas A&M, University of Missouri, Louisiana State, University of Oklahoma, Baylor and OSU.
Lerner said students need to know how the service works. “Students can determine what advertising messages reach them,” Lerner said.
WHAMtext’s selling point is being able to text “I want (business name)” to the service, Lerner said, because with enough requests, the requested business may begin offering coupons on the service.
“We’ve had 20 people text us ‘I want Qdoba’ since yesterday, and we told [Qdoba] that,” Lerner said. “Now, they’re on board.”
Lerner said no additional cost is added to the standard text messaging rates.
Weldon Tanner, a nutritional sciences senior, said he used the WHAMcard last year.
Tanner said he liked that businesses using the text service can update their offers periodically.
“You can get tired of the same stuff all the time,” he said. “It’d be nice for a change.”
Tanner said he used a coupon book more than his WHAMcard before because the coupons included Qdoba restaurant offers.
He said he would use the text service this year for Qdoba coupons. Mohammed Mahmoud runs Stillwater’s IHOP. He said he advertised with Lerner, using the WHAMcard last semester, and text this semester.
“I got very good business from him last year, so I’m hoping to get good business from it this time,” Mahmoud said.
“I got two coupon requests already and it’s been … two, three days, so yeah, it’s good.”
Lerner said he and student employees distributed 6,000 cards on OSU’s campus last week.
WHAMtext users can look at all the businesses using the service at the Web site, WHAMtext.com, and request coupons from the Web site.
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