A pile of coupon news came out today as Google announced yet another free service. This one allows businesses to offer coupons to consumers via Google Maps.

Bath & Body Works also announced it is offering coupons to its customers via mobile phone. Mobile phone coupons present an interesting opportunity to tap into the coveted third screen by providing these instant discounts.

The consumer appeal is obvious. Seth Godin tells marketers that coupons are also “trivially easy to test, track and practically free to distribute.” They give retailers a lot more flexibility than the printed coupons in the Sunday circulars.

But mobile phone coupons feel like an old approach bolted onto a new media. You have to show the cashier your coupon code in Bath & Body’s current model. Hopefully as mobile phone utility increases, it will become a bit more intuitive to the device.

Marketers are using mostly push approaches to reaching mobile phone audiences. We need more creativity to make the third screen an on demand pull for marketers. Take Kraft for example. They offer recipes for download onto your iPod so you can scroll through and make sure you buy all the right ingredients.

Text messaging and point of sale seem to hold a lot of opportunity here. Would you text a point of sale wine display to get complimentary meal recommendations and recipes? What information would you like to receive on your mobile phone?