If You Check In, Cell Phones Let You Have an Espresso for Free

Would you like to become mayor for a few days? It's simple: attend a restaurant or venue of choice, do your "check-in" each time you go there, and if you're the customer who's accumulated more check-ins, you will be appointed "mayor" of the place. Confused? We're not talking about a new electoral system or a new airport procedure, but about geolocalization, one of the defining business and marketing trends in mobile technology.

Platforms like Internet and mobile technologies are often associated to virtual, parallel worlds with respect to the real world. Still, the inherited online/offline separation is not as marked as in the past. Digital technologies have been rediscovering longitude and latitude, by turning "geo-".

Let's go back to our check-in: it's one of most used functions of FourSquare, a smartphone application launched in March 2009 which has already attracted 3 million users. Through his/her check-in, a FourSquare user can signal and comment to his/her network of friends the place where he/she is at the moment (a square, a bookstore, a concert). FourSquare can interface with social networks like Twitter and Facebook, creating a synergy between smartphone and Web apps. By checking-in, the user creates value for himself/herself , by collecting badges, given to those who check in particular environments. The most sought after badge is that of mayor, which goes to the person having accumulated the most check-ins in a give place. By being mayor, you can contact the other people present in the place and benefit from the marketing initiatives of the firms affiliated to FourSquare's business program. Companies can give discounts or other benefits to the most loyal clients. Globally, there are right now 15,000 retail points which are measuring consumer loyalty on the basis of check-in frequency.

Starbucks, for instance, offfers the Barista badge after 5 check-ins, which entitles you to a free Latte. Competitors are emerging in the geo-localization market. An emergin rival is Gowalla, an app launched in December 2009. Facebook has followed the transition toward geo-marketing by creating Facebook Places, and so has Google Latitude, which allows you to locate users on Google Maps.

Among the factors determining the growth in location-based service, we can list the by now ample base of users having access to smartphones and the collector's instinct that pushes the user to signal "I've been here" to his/her friends. People want to assign value to the fact of being there rather than elsewhere. Shopping experience and servicescape remain essential aspects, by just being in a place already offers the consumer something.

The emerging best practices that are emerging from the world of geo-marketing suggest that rather than radical marketing initiatives, what companies need is the coupling of loyalty programs and geolocalization systems.