Coinstar Appoints Seasoned Branding Expert as Vice President of Marketing.

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 8, 1999--

Addition of Richard Stillman Completes Leadership Team for Company's

Consumer Marketing, Retail Development, and E-Services Initiatives

Coinstar Inc. (Nasdaq:CSTR), the leading retail-based coin counting and e-services company, announced today that it has named Richard Stillman as vice president of marketing.

Mr. Stillman comes to the company with more than 20 years of retail marketing experience and expertise in building major national brands.

Mr. Stillman has served in an executive capacity at national advertising agencies Grey Advertising, Cole & Weber and The Lord Group where he helped companies such as The Perrier Group, Dannon Inc., Procter & Gamble, Silicon Graphics and Smith Kline Beecham build powerful national and international brands. Most recently, Mr. Stillman was head of marketing at Onvia.com, a business-to-business e-commerce company. Prior to working at Onvia.com, he was co-founder and vice president of sales and marketing for Originet Inc., a startup technology company providing digital multimedia interactive systems to large retailers.

"Rich has a proven track record of building great brands," said Dan Gerrity, president and COO of Coinstar Inc. "He has innovated successful new products and has led the creation of powerful marketing campaigns that have grown sales volumes. Rich will focus his talents on building our leadership position in our core coin recycling business."

Coinstar has also named its former vice president of marketing, Ian Melanson, to the newly created position of vice president and general manager of the company's e-services business unit. Mr. Melanson will have overall responsibility for the company's new Internet meal planning services and its in-store frequent shopper kiosks. Bill Booth continues as vice president of retail development, with responsibility for growing Coinstar's retail network to new locations, and now reports to the COO.

"The addition of Rich to our marketing team enables us to focus our marketing on three key objectives: increasing consumer awareness and trial usage in our core business, strengthening our partnerships with our retailers, and building our e-services business," said Jens Molbak, CEO of Coinstar Inc. "We are very pleased to have all three of these talented individuals on our team."

Coinstar and its subsidiaries provide consumers and retailers with value-added services that increase customer loyalty and retailer profitability. The Coinstar network currently delivers the company's self-service coin counting product to more than 6,200 leading supermarkets in 38 states, the District of Columbia, the United Kingdom and Canada. Consumers can call 1-800-928-CASH, or visit http://www.findcoinstar.com for the location of the nearest Coinstar machine.

In addition to historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The Company's future actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking statements discussed herein. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, success in the timely deployment of a substantial number of additional Coinstar units, consumer awareness and demand for the Company's coin processing service, success in expanding its network and managing its growth and the Company's ability to protect its patents and proprietary rights as well as other risks discussed under "Risk Factors" included in the Company's Registration Statement, as amended, on Form S-3 (NO.333-79073), the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and the Company's other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.