Coke's mall rewards

Coca-Cola is kicking off a nationwide location-based rewards initiative targeted at young teens with SCVNGR as its platform of choice. The soda maker has seeded Simon Malls across the U.S. with challenges that players can complete to earn special Coke rewards.

The campaign is called Coke Secret Formula and is set to go live at 10 malls beginning November 26 — otherwise known to holiday shoppers as Black Friday. The idea is to encourage application users to look for hidden shopping experiences in the form of Coke challenges and unlock rewards in the process.

SCVNGR players who complete the Coke mall challenges can accumulate enough points to redeem instant rewards including American Express gift cards and Coke-branded merchandise. In total, Coke will be giving away $100,000 in gift card rewards. The challenges are typical SCVNGR fare — checkins and photos — themed to fit the Coke Secret Formula purpose.

For full story visit: http://mashable.com/2010/11/19/scvngr-coke-rewards/

Borders innovation

As of today, shoppers will be able to use Google’s Local Availability feature to locate books and other products at their local Borders, as well as look up how many items are in stock, prices and store directions — a feature no other book retailer offers yet.

Borders has also announced a partnership with Meetup to promote its book signings and other store events.

The announcements follow several other recent updates to the book retailer’s digital strategy, including a new version of its website that features, most notably, customer reviews on each product page.

The company also recently unveiled its version of Amazon Prime by offering free two-day shipping and returns on all online orders for an annual price of $79. Free, 30-day trials are available at borders.com/shoprunner.

While the new developments aren’t “game-changing” by any means, they do make the brick-and-mortar bookseller slightly more competitive with its chief rivals, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Foursquare collaboration witht Grocery Store Loyalty Program

Safeway and PepsiCo are teaming up with Foursquare to reinvent the way grocery store shoppers think about location-based rewards and checkins. As part of the deal, Safeway has integrated Foursquare into its VonsClub loyalty program for a three-month pilot program that kicks off today.

The crux of the program is that VonsClub members can now link their Foursquare (foursquare) accounts to unlock PepsiCo rewards every time they shop.

Shoppers who link their accounts will earn instant Foursquare rewards on PepsiCo products — in the form of coupons printed at the register — at the time of sale. Rewards are also personalized to the user and tied to the types of badges a Foursquare user has already unlocked.

The program is being tested at roughly 300 Vons grocery stores in southern California, as first reported by Fast Company.

Foursquare and VonsClub members can optionally select to have the system automatically check them in at the time of purchase, via VonsClub card swipe, and send out a shout on Foursquare when they unlock a reward.



The whole program is deeply integrated into Safeway’s point-of-sale system and existing loyalty program. It’s modeled around Tasti D-Lite’s avant garde loyalty program introduced earlier this year, we hear.

For Foursquare, this partnership is not about the kind of deals you can find from competing services such as Facebook Places, but instead is focused around actual customer loyalty.

for full story go to: http://mashable.com/2010/11/19/foursquare-pepsi-safeway/

Buying through Paypal on your remote control...

Paypal is working on a television commerce (T-commerce) solution that will let consumers buy goods they see on Internet-connected TVs via their remote controls.

The new PayPal project was revealed in a blog post by Osama Bedler, the company’s VP of platform for mobile and new ventures.

“Today, I’m happy to say we’re one step closer to equipping every living room in America with T-commerce powered by PayPal,” writes Bedler. “Imagine this: lounging on your couch and channel surfing, then finding that perfect birthday present. A few clicks of your remote, and you’ve purchased the gift via your PayPal account.”

Essentially, PayPal hopes to transform its payment platform into a digital wallet, accessible anywhere there’s Internet (Internet) connectivity. To this end, the company has already announced Mobile Express Checkout, a mobile payment solution currently being used by Starbucks.

PayPal has teamed up with Canoe Ventures, Catalina Marketing, Delivery Agent, FouthWall Media and icueTV on its T-commerce initiative. No specific timing has been announced.

by Jennifer Van Grove for Mashable