Check In and Chow Down

I am loving the thinking behind this German dog food sampling activity via FourSquare / Outdoor! Nice way of driving habit and trial. After all, puppy training is all about habit formation: reward good behaviour and do it consistently and repeatedly!

Elasticity of distance and discounting

The fact that people will shop around and will make a degree of effort if a potential saving is perceived to be significant is hardly surprising. What is interesting though, is this attempt by JiWire (found via Techcrunch) to start to quantify the model  particularly in this era of Groupon type social buying models, Facebook Deals / Foursquare offers and smartphone based price comparison services. Location based services are here to stay and it will be interesting to see how they are developed and exploited.

 

Are checked-in? Where?

you Well according to Foursquare the world picture of people checking in looks like this...

(click to enlarge)

UK's most popular places to (Facebook Places) check in

An events venue, a theme park and a department store top the list today. Probably pretty realistic indication of how the population overall likes to spend their free time. However, all great if you have somewhere for your consumers to check in, but what if you don't?

Pepsi recently announced a smart trial which links a US grocery store's loyalty programme with their FourSquare account.

Makes utter sense to me. I already have Tesco and Waitrose apps on my phones, the former includes my clubcard number, the latter is a place I frequently check-in.  Merge that functionality with a brand layer and you start building some interesting data on behaviour that you can use to target promotions.  Smart.

Coke Israel bring location to Facebook (before Facebook did!)

Just tripped over this interesting example from Coke Israel who ran a summer camp style event at which participants were issued with a wristband with an RFID chip embedded that enabled auto-posting of what activities they got up to at the event & auto-tagging of  themselves in photos.

Arguably this is Facebook Places without the requirement to check-in via mobile & occurred ahead of Facebook Places launching but it illustrates quite well the scope location /technology can add.  Without question it also highlights some of the concerns over privacy and sharing too (read the comments below the video if you choose to watch it on YouTube rather than here), but presumably the teen participants were made aware of how the thing worked given that the chip contained their Facebook login data so they must have agreed to making that available.




Diesel created something similar with Facepark -an offline Facebook-esque experience

Benetton uses Foursquare to promote store re-launch event

Last night I was finishing a post on Facebook Places & Location Based Services (LBS) when I noticed that the flagship Benetton store at Oxford Circus (London) was using Foursquare to promote a store event. Had I been following their Twitter stream I'd have heard about it rather than tripping over it.

Curious digital womble that I am, as it was only down the road I thought I'd go and investigate as it's the first time I've noticed:

a) Foursquare featuring "special" places (as it was flagged if you look closely at the image) and

b) any major brand using Foursquare in this way (in the UK at any rate, there are lots of examples floating around, mostly from the US, including GAP offering a 25%  discount if you checked-in to one of their stores this week (not sure if it's US only or global, not tried).

Walking into the store, there was a buzzy chaos - masses of people queuing for photoshoots, and waiters walking around with trays of drinks. I checked in.

I admit I initially missed this single piece of Foursquare signage directing me to the first floor. So I  asked a member of staff, showing her my check in  and she was nice but clearly hadn't been briefed at all or had the foggiest clue what FourSquare was, but eventually she just sent me upstairs suggesting I ask someone up there where it was a little less chaotic.

Upstairs, I finally found a member of the store management who equally wasn't really clued about the Foursquare promotion, even though I later discovered she was standing about 10 feet from this, the only other piece of instore signage I could see....

That said,  she was very nice and after showing her my check-in screen and explaining she handed over the goody-bag that everyone else got if they bought something (which inevitably I did later anyway).

I didn't quite go as far as a "haul" video (watch this as a randomly selected example),that I know are all the rage but here's what it contained:

• A (branded) fold up re-usable shopping bag (nice eco touch, & very handy)
• A bottle of Benetton Woman perfume (generously full size even!)
• A Benetton mug
• Some stickers
• An eye mask
• A lanyard
• Some multi-coloured felt-tip pens
• A magazine highlighting the results of web-based casting competition they ran earlier in the year to find the faces of the Fall/Winter 2010/11 product advertising (more on that shortly)

I'm not much of a clutter-junkie, but I recognise that some thought (and value) had gone into the contents, and for doing nothing more than heading into store and checking in, you'd have to be pretty cynical not to appreciate the freebies.

How successful was the Foursquare initiative?

Good question, I was there just before 8pm, and my Foursquare screen showed that 19 people (+me) had checked-in over the last 2 hours. Arguably it could be a greater number than that, as not everyone chooses to make their check-ins visible, and who knows whether they were just the geeky & curious or whether like me they came out having spent the best part of £100 in store as well.

Those are not big numbers, and it's impossible to guess at how many went purely as a result of seeing that "special" flag when they went to check-in to somewhere else nearby.Then again if that was 20 more people who potentially wouldn't have gone in otherwise, and walked out with something free that made them feel good about the brand, (everyone loves free stuff as we all know) and/or had spent money instore,  that has to be worth something, although I wonder how much they had to pay Foursquare?

Assuming at least some of those people link their Foursquare account to Twitter +/or Facebook then there's also a fair chance that the" Fiona checked in at United Colours of Benetton" type messages will have reached a fair few others via organic impressions through featuring in Facebook news/tweetstreams, which may only have served as a mental nudge or a brand endorsement to those friends/followers seeing the message, which is impossible to attribute hard ROI to, but again has to count for something.

Nice try Benetton. It's good to see brands experimenting in new spaces.

Back to the "It's my time" Benetton Global casting competition then...  I'd seen it earlier in the year and admittedly promptly forgotten about it. I'd much rather be behind the camera than in front!

The magazine in my goody bag showcased the initiative, the results and the winners

• 5-6 week campaign which ran Feb-mid-March 2010
• Asked people to upload images / videos answering the questions"who are you, what makes you unique" & a chance to feature as one of the faces of the a/w product advertising.
• 65k people from over 210 countries entered
• 40k+ women (almost twice as many as men)
• 17k teenagers
• 35k 20-30 somethings
• 8k 30+'s
• Over 5 million comments on the blog in 5 weeks 
• Initiative supported on MTV & with print ads with Augmented Reality feature
• The community voted for the Top 100 submissions, and the final 20 winners selected by an expert panel

I think the who entered stats are revealing and interesting. The digital age divide between digital native and digital immigrants isn't black and white, but these figures still suggest how much more comfortable & prepared to participate and contribute the sub 30's are on the whole.

I should think Benetton are pretty pleased with their efforts and the results.

Rather a shame though that the last post on the blog was from July, because it seems like they've built up a relationship, however loose, with a lot of people putting their hand up and saying they are interested in the brand, and Benetton are now just letting it flail.  These initiatives are great, but they need thinking about beyond the defined period they are designated as "live" for.

As my friend John Wilshire wrote in a great thought piece this week it's not about creating short shelf life ideas anymore, but about ideas that contribute to the company / brand purpose whilst maintaining both an ability to evolve in a relevant fashion, and, provide a reason for people to participate / talk about them. (And that's an extremely short and horribly overly simplistic way to describe John's great article so I'd highly recommend you mosey over and read it.)

Facebook *finally* joins in the location based services arena

Facebook have finally launched their own "check-in" facility.

iPhone/Facebook users in the US woke up this morning to find that they could shout out to all their friends about the fact they were picking up a skinny-extra-hot-decaf-vanilla-latte at their neighbourhood coffeeshop on the way to work. *Yawn*. Or, see who else was there too [official Facebook video], (forgive my English sense of humour but who are these sad people??).  Try looking back at the queue! Or call/text/BBM/IM/Email and arrange to meet them first. Crazy!
 

Whilst there's been lots of speculation over the last few days that this will be the death of the two leading existing social network / Location Based Service offerings, Foursquare and Gowalla, Facebook instead announced partnerships with them both (albeit the details still seem a little hazy, especially as you can already shout out about your Foursquare check-ins on your Facebook newsfeed if you are so inclined).

What gives Facebook Places power is largely down to sheer potential scale - 500m+ Facebook members globally. It's also an API so we'll see people experimenting with different uses for it. As a business you can add your pub/restaurant/shop etc to it (and a page), making it easy for people to find it and  "check in" there & therefore generate some organic promotion via the"Fiona checked-in at Reynolds"type messages that will appear in newsfeeds:

It also makes Facebook even more of a global "yellow pages" (gone large, with the added benefit of the tips / accolades / endorsements of people you know who've already been) which will further add weight to the debates about social search, and the potential of a Facebook v Google face off in the fight for advertiser dollars.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the point of Places wasn't about shouting about where you are, it was about finding and sharing places, but I'm only partially convinced. For me, I think Places check-in's and broadcasts are likely to be used for "status" (i.e boasting), "badging" (look at the type of places I hang out), ultimately both of which are really just another piece of easy-win, no effort conversation content, in a world where for many if you aren't updating your status you are so off the radar you might as well be invisible.  Fairplay to Facebook then for helping the user solve a problem they organically created in the first place.

If you leave your privacy settings un-amended you'll also find that your iPhone / smartphone-equipped friends can "tag" you as being at places, much as they can in photos, whether you wanted them to or not, so I'd suggest that you amend your privacy settings. (Here's how). Better to avoid the chaos that could potentially be caused by a mischievous (if innocent) mate checking you in with them at a pub (in status terms that could arguably be construed as them boasting about their popularity) when you'd told your girlfriend/boyfriend etc that you were working late and you'd be back ASAP.

Messy.

The Places service & API are due to be rolled out internationally soon, so whilst this might not effect you right now it soon will. In the interim that gives the rest of us a little time to see who's doing interesting marketing experiments leveraging Facebook Places and learn & improve on them.

Meanwhile, here's an example I've literally just spotted on FourSquare to start making all this location based marketing stuff a little more tangible:

Benetton's London flagship store has a FourSquare promotion on right now (the first of this kind I've noticed). Note the "special" flag" on the first image, and the offer of free stuff if you check inbefore 8pm today.  Talking of which I'd better go home that way and check it out!

Facebook Places coming soon...

Well the announcement at any rate - follow the news via their Facebook Places Twitter feed:

Facebook to announce location based service development?

The web is a buzz with rumors that Facebook will make an announcement  about location based services tomorrow. Whether they will remains to be seen but with FourSquare / Gowalla reasonably well established now in the LBS / social networking / recommendation / gaming sector, I'd recommend a read of this Techcrunch article.

I've certainly noted a greater number of my digital/ creative buddies wanting to be my friend on FourSquare over the last few weeks. Perhaps it's entirely co-incidental, or perhaps there was lots of UK buzz around it whilst I was on hols. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see what will happen subject to the Facebook announcement, particularly given that lots of the companies making a play for interaction on FourSquare are US based and there's far less of the promotional incentives for loyalty etc on this side of the pond as yet.

Tracking down prizewinners...

Nice idea I just read about on Springwise from Unilever in Brazil for their washing powder brand Omo. 
GPS tracking devices were inserted in pack and enabled the comms agency to literally track down the prizewinners, mirroring the new formulation of the product which alleges to track down dirt in the wash. Worth 3 mins of your time. Nice to see examples of brands doing brave things and making an effort, albeit it throws up some interesting questions about ethics and privacy.

Location sensitive vouchers & coupons direct to your mobile

Yesterday I tripped over an interesting location based voucher & coupon finding app called VoucherCloud.

There being no time like the present it was swiftly downloaded, a simple 2 stage email & password sign up dealt with and we were off.  I was admittedly slightly amazed at quite how many offers from a broad range of places were jumping out at us, all set out by  location/specified distance from us / specific category to choose from if we wished (although it took us a while to work out that the elephant icon meant attractions!)...

 

 

The app shows the range of offers (where there is more than one from a given promoter) and where the nearest locations/branches you can redeem the vouchers at , giving address and contact details / or showing them on a map.

 

We opted to try redeeming a free coffee (seemingly not even conditional on any other purchase) at the Coffee Republic around the corner from the office. 

We walked in, showed the barrista the voucher on the phone, and voila,  a free coffee.  Too easy!

The app then invited us to input the money we'd saved on the cost of the coffee presumably so we can track out savings / encourage us to value the (free) app. Smart.

I've been seeing location based offers on FourSquare for a while, as per this example, 

but Vouchercloud is more expansive because it's already hooked in to an established online couponing destination, and just bringing this already familiar behaviour / promotional opportunity closer to a point of purchase, which makes a lot of sense for both consumers and marketers alike.

I can totally see why I would use this app over and over again.

Useful = get used repeatedly in the app space = builds loyalty and brand affinity & advocacy.

London living means that I am often meeting friends for coffee, drinks or dinner, but in this mobile age plans often hinge around meeting near a Tube station without a specific plan to meet at a particular pub or restaurant, and so mobile couponing could readily sway plans in favour of one venue over another.

It's easy to see how couponing can work for restaurants and bars, but I see no reason why the same principles couldn't apply for packaged goods brands and beyond. Imagine the opportunity for your brand to call out about a free sample, event or a promotion at one of your retail partners with a branch near by? 

Barclays Bank are already embracing location based services via Layar, with their own Layar that shows not just where the nearest Barclays Branch or ATM is, but also retail partners who accept their cashless RFID / wave and pay card technology, which enables you to pay for low value items just by touching your card against a reader. No signature, no code to punch, no cash to look for.