If you compare all location-based services to Foursquare, you need to stop right now. The user experience on SCVNGR, an application for virtual scavenger hunts, is entirely different from those on other location-based services. Yesterday, The Ad Club hosted a SCVNGR hunt for local advertising and marketing professionals to find the judges for the The Hatch Awards. Eight a&g employees joined the hunt in downtown Boston.

How a SCVNGR trek works

1. A company or organization licenses the SCVNGR platform to create a journey complete with trivia questions, miniature missions and puzzles.
2. Users download the SCVNGR application onto their smart phones and use it to find the locations within their desired trek. They can also play over SMS.
3. SCVNGR tracks each user’s progress throughout the trek and awards points for completing tasks.
4. At the end of each hunt, the winners are rewarded with prizes ranging from Super Bowl rings to iPads.

What SCVNGR gets right

• It’s easy to access for both users and companies.
  
• It provides a gaming layer on top of geo-locality that brings the user past the simple check-in found on Foursquare and Gowalla.
• It gives users tangible and intangible incentives to explore hot spots and sights they might not have found otherwise.
• Through the activity tab, SCVNGR chronicles a shared experience for all users participating in the hunt.

SCVNGR still has to overcome a few barriers

• It does not operate well in verticals. Challenges for one trek are mixed in with general challenges as well as challenges from other treks. SCVNGR doesn’t provide a filter for users to find exactly what challenges need to be completed for a specific trek.

Congratulations to a&g's Matt Dexter and Lauren Steingold who accidentally got engaged while completing a task for a different SCVNGR trek.

• Challenges with open-ended answers are sometimes very picky. One of yesterday’s tasks required users to name what artifacts were displayed in a glass case at The Green Dragon Tavern. A gaggle of Ad Club members huddled around the case guessing answers like “musket” and “rifle.” SCVNGR was simply looking for the word “gun.” On an old-fashioned paper list scavenger hunt, a wider range of correct answers would have been accepted.
• At times, SCVNGR’s challenges are too virtual. They don’t necessarily require users to go find a location. One of The Ad Club’s challenges told users to go to Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park and write a rhyming poem about Boston. But users didn’t actually have to physically go to the park. They could write the poem from anywhere, which takes the “hunt” out of scavenger hunt.
• Scavenger hunts are team experiences, but the application does not make it easy for multiple users on the same team to follow along on each of their phones. Instead, teams share one cell phone that tracks their progress, which can present lots of confusing “wait, let me see your phone” moments. Couple that with the difficulty of trying to read a cell phone screen in bright daylight.

SCVNGR has enormous potential to allow users to find the gaming layer on top of the world around them. New developments for the application are popping up all the time, so expect some of these issues to be resolved soon. SCVNGR just announced a rewards program earlier this week, and a Blackberry application is rumored to be on the way.

The location space is expanding in many different directions right now. Want to talk more about location-based services and some of the goodies we’re working on at a&g? Drop us a tweet (@schneidermike or@EricLeist), leave us a comment, or contact us here.

Meaghan LePage, Marketing Campaign Producer & novice photographer & control freak & recovering Diet Coke addict.

Knowing that a friend is having a party in a few weeks is more than enough information for most. Not me. I want to know exactly when it is, where it is, what time it is and what I can bring at least 2 months out. It’s critical I’m aware of who’s attending, what we’ll be doing, what kind of music will be playing, what kind of food will be served, how I should dress or which shoes I should wear (sporting spiked heels at an outdoor wedding on the grass is a recipe for disaster).

I am a stickler for details and an information junkie. I want to know every aspect of my clients’ business down to the maiden name of the receptionist who answers when I call the main line. The better understanding I have of their business and marketing efforts, the better the solutions I am able to offer and service I am able to provide.

I’ve held client service and project management roles in advertising and marketing for over 7 years now and have been fortunate to work on strategies and executions for several companies including: Citizens Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Garelick Farms, AAA of New England, Cintas Corporation, Milton CAT, Yale-New Haven Hospital and Salem Hospital.

(left to right) Mike Schneider, Leighann Farrelly, Phil Thomas Di Giulio and Wayne Sutton (photo by @leximaven)

Our own Mike Schneider moderated this week’s MITX panel discussion titled “To Check-In or Not To Check-In? The Opportunities of Location Based Social Networking.” The panel consisted of Pegshot co-founder Phil Thomas Di Giulio, Yelp Boston Marketing Director Leighann Farrelly, and Wayne Sutton, Business Development & Marketing Strategist for TriOut.

We’ve aggregated some of the key insights and tweets from the panel discussion. Enjoy!

Key insights:

• Businesses should take an active role in promoting check-ins and brand engagement on location-based services.
• Each LBS has a different spin. Pegshot puts content first and location second. Triout puts community first, then location. Whrrl puts check-ins first and then integrates a post-checkin experience. Yelp puts food and reviews first and check-ins further down on the priority list. These subtle nuances help to differentiate each service.
• Businesses will have to figure out how to treat data from LBS platforms. That data currently only represents a fraction of a customer base. Marketers need to devise ways of proving the value on these new platforms.
• Check-ins are a means to an end. Businesses and LBS services will have to work together to drive measurable action from those check-ins.

From the Twitterverse:

Are you using an LBS? How are you seeing marketers use these new platforms? Want to talk more about location-based services and some of the goodies we’re working on at a&g? Drop us a tweet (@schneidermike or @EricLeist), leave us a comment, or contact us here.

Social media are built on our human need to share information. That includes personal information such as what we’re doing, where we are, who we’re with and (increasingly) what we buy. Now, companies and consumers are grabbing hold of social commerce, but are both parties fully taking advantage of it?

Social bargain-hunting service Groupon is currently operating in 52 cities. Its website boasts users have saved almost $300 million through Groupon’s featured deals. The average deal price on the site has steadily increased from about $25 in November 2009 to $45 in April. More markets are opening their doors to social commerce, and droves of consumers are flocking to the idea.

How social commerce works

On Groupon, if a predetermined number of people purchase the discounted coupon each of them get the product or service at a discounted rate. In the very rare instance that the deal fails to reach the predetermined number of purchases, everyone’s transaction is cancelled and no one gets the deal.



With a similar service, Living Social, users get discounts if they convince their friends to buy the featured products and services. These services are giving companies and consumers the power to leverage online sharing, creating win-win situations in the process.

BUT that’s not all…

What if companies decide to hand over other promotional activities to the social realm? All signs point to the social commerce trend’s continued success, so why not take social sharing past one-time discount coupons?

Purchase-sharing site Blippy lets users broadcast what they buy to their social networks and spark conversations around those purchases. Some people see Blippy as a huge invasion of privacy, but that may be because outside of the conversations, Blippy doesn’t offer any incentive for users to share. That’s where merchants have an opportunity to step in. They need to give their customers incentive to share their location and/or purchases. That incentive can come in many different forms other than pre-purchase discounts as with LivingSocial and Groupon.

Consider the following possibilities:

• An electronics store gives customers more points on its loyalty program for Tweeting purchases automatically.
• A ticket vendor offers free parking for an event to a user who posts his football ticket purchase to Facebook.
• An apparel company with an exclusive product testing club for its most frequent customers gives those customers more freebies to try if they blog or post pictures of the clothing on social networks.

The average Facebook user has 130 friends. So each piece of content shared on the site has potential for a 130x multiplier effect. TypePad just released a study that proved Facebook Like widgets increase blog traffic by 50%. Imagine if the same increase was applied to products or services. And that’s only Facebook. Add that influence to email contacts, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, Foursquare friends and other social groups. We’re talking about huge opportunities for vendors to let their marketing run rampant through their customers’ networks.

Want to talk more about social commerce and some of the goodies we’re working on at a&g? Drop us a tweet (@schneidermike or @EricLeist), leave us a comment, or contact us here.

Neil Cleary, VP Director of Audience Intelligence & rider & dad & retired gypsy & perpetual questioner & tech geek & always taking things apart & sometimes putting things back together.

Apparently it’s an affliction I’ve struggled with since childhood. I was constantly taking things apart to figure out how they worked and sometimes putting them back together. It first manifested itself with my toys, they my brother’s toys, bikes, radios, cars, motorcycles, and buildings.

Another of my afflictions is the need to explore. I’ve lived in seven states, spent three months traveling in Europe, and worked on clients that have taken me throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia. I’ve uprooted myself from the familiar & re-rooted in new cities where I was lucky if I knew one person five times (three without a job). The first was after college, when I decided that not knowing what I wanted to do with my life was as good a reason as I was likely to not find a job, so I loaded up the Jeep I’d resurrected from a junkyard and headed left with plans to check out the West Coast.

I got as far as Vail. For the next year I careened down the mountains on skis, bikes, and Rollerblades (and of course spent a good deal of time trudging back up to collect my gear). Two of the more important things I learned during my year in the mountains:

1. Each season is better than the last (which may explain why there are so many ‘accidental’ ski-bums)
2. Do what you love/love what you do

I returned to Boston not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up, so found work as a builder…homes, offices, McDonald’s drive-thrus; which fed the need to make/fix/improve things, but after one particularly long, cold winter and too many near industrial accidents, I decided to find a career where my curiosity and skills could be applied without risk of (permanent) bodily injury.

Thus began the journey into advertising and planning, which started with an internship at Mullen. When BMW jumped ship for Fallon, I decided it was time for California and headed San Francisco. The next few years were spent at Y&R then Lot21 Interactive. When the bubble ruptured it seemed a good time to get east; this time to Atlanta to work at Grey on BellSouth. When SBC purchased AT&T I headed to St. Louis & Rodgers Townsend to work on the merger then north to Chicago & Leo Burnett where I spent the most of my time working on McDonald’s, Samsung, and Hallmark.

Last Spring, the phone rang and the voice on the other end asked if I’d be interested in getting back to Boston. Where it all began. How could I refuse? I jumped at the chance and haven’t looked back. The Channel and The Rat may be gone, but the Middle East and Redbones…. it’s great to be home!

Ben Daly, Digital Art Director & photography junkie & Macintosh disciple & gadget hound & planning a wedding.

I’m a believer that a design aesthetic is not medium-dependent, that a strong UI will out-duel the largest photo gallery, that there is no “fold” on the interwebs and that serif fonts are slowly growing tired. There is a harmony, now, between design and technology and true art direction is in the creative union of them both. I came to Allen & Gerritsen from several agencies in the Boston area and have worked on Progressive Insurance, RadioShack, TRUTH (American Legacy Foundation), Samsung, Titleist/FootJoy, Salem Five and Zildjian.

What I love the most about Allen & Gerritsen is the constant, never-ending supply of cereal.

When I was 14 years old, I was skinny, awkward and curious. (That much of me has pretty much stayed the same.) During my first week of high school a new friend asked if I wanted to go to an after school meeting about the speech team. “Lame,” I thought. But I went anyway because I was 14 years old and didn’t know how to say, “no” to new friends. Two and a half years later, I was standing on some stage somewhere in Chicago receiving some recognition as the National Champion because some judges apparently thought I was a decent competitive public speaker. Just like that, a communicator was born.

Ever since then, I have been helping people communicate—most of the time without realizing it. That meant editing friends’ term papers and being the “presentation guy” in group projects in college. It means volunteering time as a speech coach at a local high school. It meant choosing Public Relations as a major at Boston University (despite the fact that I was initially inspired by the movie Anchorman to pursue Broadcast Journalism).

So that’s where I am now. Fresh out of college and working hard in the areas of communication I see people needing the most help: new media and technology. It’s all moving so quickly & I love helping people keep up.

What drives the consumer practice at allen&gerritsen?
The idea that the consumer comes first. It’s how we got our name – a&g c2b. This seemingly subtle (and maybe even slightly semantic) point is the basis for our communications approach and the cornerstone of our clients’ success.

Embracing Today’s Communications Revolution
At a&g c2b we believe that we’re in the midst of a communications revolution – a revolution that is being led by the consumer. They’re determining where they’ll engage with brands, when they’ll engage and most importantly how they’ll engage with brands.

The Monologue is Dead. Long Live the Dialog
In determining where the consumer will allow brands to engage with them, they have effectively said, “no more monologues. No more one way conversations where you talk and I listen. . . whether I want to or not.” Today they seek engagement, a dialog in a place and time of their chosing.

Not Your Father’s Marketing Plan
And that means that marketing plans – and media schedules – today should be a far cry from the plans and schedules of just a few years ago. A major daily newspaper in the northeast (who shall remain nameless) experienced a 23% decline in circulation in 2009. Similar declines are reported by other traditional media. Brands must move beyond traditional marketing plans and approaches if they intend to stay relevant and vital to today’s consumers.

Connecting Consumers to Business. Not Businesses to Consumers
So in the end, as we think about it, at allen&gerritsen c2b, we don’t connect businesses to consumers – those days are gone. We create conversations by connecting consumers to business.