A personal Foursquare experience: where is Oliver?

Home A personal Foursquare experience: where is Oliver?

Today, we are all connected. Anytime, anyplace. The fact that our e-mails are continuously arriving on our smartphones has become a commodity.

What surprised me however, was the rise of FourSquare. Last week, I came across FourSquare’s infographic where it showed that FourSquare grew 3.400% last year: https://www.fastcodesign.com/1663093/infographic-how-foursquare-grew-3400-in-one-year

I started using FourSquare a few months ago. Why? Because I saw FourSquare-mentions popping up on FaceBook and my curious nature pushed me to the discovery. People already think I’m a digital nerd, but my ‘loved ones’ really didn’t get why I used it. And quite honestly: neiher did I.

So, if I don’t get it… why should an advertiser be interested OR what use could it bring me? Knowing that, FourSquare became an app that I used when I thought of it. The idea of collecting badges and battling for mayorship (especially at the office) was only ‘fun’.

But then I was struck by an interesting campaign. A week ago, I logged in at the office using FourSquare, and a little yellow flag appeared on the top of my screen yelling ‘Special Offer Nearby’. When clicking on it, a page appeared offering me a free poster of ‘Oliver’ (the musical playing in Stadsschouwburg Antwerpen, right behind the office) when I showed up at the promo booth, showing a log-in in the Stadsschouwburg.

And suddenly I got the picture… FourSquare is in fact a very easy way of doing location-based advertising, without infringing on one’s personal space or device with (even opt-in) push messages.

A whole new set of ideas come to mind… but as always: you’ll need a critical mass. After 2 log-ins at Stadsschouwburg (I happened to have meetings there), I already became the mayor. After complimenting the sales manager at MusicHall, she didn’t know what I was talking about.

So, FourSquare: interesting advertising ideas, right now only for the few and the knowing, but if FourSquare-usage keeps growing like it did last year… we’re heading to interesting times, combining leisure-activities with relevant advertising!