Location-Based Social Networks

I'm sure by now, we have all heard of some location based social networks such as Foursquare and Facebook places. Not only do these applications benefit consumers; they benefit companies as well. Customers can leave positive feedback and tips about companies on Foursquare, which in turn can encourage business. There have been several companies that have taken advantage of this social media outlet, and formed campaigns around them. One such campaign was the @CatchAChoo campaign by Jimmy Choo, a high end fashion company based in London, that used Foursquare as a way to promote their products. The campaign started in order to introduce and promote the company's newest sneaker line in an innovative, engaging way. The main goals of the campaign were to increase the conversation about the Jimmy Choo brand both online and offline, increase customer interaction and word of mouth conversations about the new line, as well as monetary goals. The social media agency that created the campaign was a company called Fresh Networks, also based in London. So how did Jimmy Choo pull off a campaign on Foursquare? They used several means of social media- Foursquare, Twitter, and Facebook, all of which were integrated together to form the total campaign. This really encouraged customer interaction. The main basis of the campaign was that there was a pair of the new sneakers in a bag that would be placed at various locations around London. Followers of their Facebook and Twitter pages were given hints as to where the sneakers might be, and then the sneakers were "checked in" to those places on Foursquare. One of the main reasons that Jimmy Choo used all of these forms of social media was to also involve customers that weren't in London because with the other two outlets, they were able to follow the campaign as well. Once a person approached the Jimmy Choo employee with the bag of sneakers, the campaign was over, and the winner got a free pair of the sneakers.

So...sounds like a great idea and all, but how did it work? Well, there were several, very concrete results. First of all, the sales of the sneakers rose 33% following the campaign, and positive mentions of the company online increased by 40%. During the campaign (which lasted 4 weeks), there were 111 check-ins on Foursquare and 4000 Twitter mentions of Jimmy Choo. Obviously, the campaign reached its goal of increased customer interaction; one article stated that 1 in 17 Foursquare users in London were participating in the campaign. The CEO of Jimmy Choo, Joshua Schulman, stated:

"The Jimmy Choo Trainer Hunt, CatchAChoo, has been a real success in terms of achieving our key objectives for the campaign. The campaign not only generated successfully traditional offline media coverage, it also spread the online word-of-mouth about our new Jimmy Choo Trainer collection.

We have been pleased at how it has increased the level of interaction with our brand, and with trainer sales in-store increasing as a direct result of the campaign, we are very pleased that FreshNetworks' strategic approach has helped generate real ROI."

One thing that companies are often scared of when it comes to using social media as a means to advertise and promote their products is that they don't understand how to see real life results. This is understandable, since social media is more intangible and  it can be hard to measure monetary value and growth. However, companies need to develop a means of measuring their return, like Jimmy Choo did, before they launch any sort of social media campaign. One of the goals of the @CatchAChoo campaign was to increase online conversation of the company, which it did. It is important to establish goals and ways to measure if these goals are completed or not beforehand. 

So what do you guys think about companies using social media and location-based social networks in order to advertise their products and services? Would you do it even if it didn't show concrete ROI?


(The link to the campaign video can be found here)