I've never heard a company say we report $20mil in sales but they were actually $22mil but someone used coupons? That's laughable.
Not at all—it's standard GAAP accounting of “net revenue.” Under GAAP, a coupon applied at the time of service must be treated as an offset to revenue (rather than as a marketing expense).
“The efficient-market hypothesis may be the foremost piece of B.S. ever promulgated in any area of human knowledge!”