I wanted to give a lowdown of this promotion since I have already had a couple of inquiries saying What? How?... (This post may be not coherent. It is 4:30 am now and I am half asleep.
GAP recently had a promotion using Facebook Places- the newest LBS to hit the almost saturated market (Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl and more). GAP was giving away 10,000 pairs of jeans last Friday. But when did I find out? Thursday around 4 pm. When did they send the message out? Thursday at 3:32 pm. A few of my thoughts on this.
1. Their window was too quick. That was less than 24 hrs. to plan and no time to digest the promotion. What if I wasn't checking FB that day? I looked at the message and initially thought, "Is that one of those Ipad schemes"? I guess I am skeptical that for FREE is not for real or there is a catch. But this was a legit deal, but not enough time to create Buzz or talk about it. Make the promotion go even further...before not after the fact that this already happened. FREE does help...Jeans are pretty pricey these days.
2. The event heading had no indication of checking into Facebook Places- it was until I clicked further to find out how. It was like someone decided that they needed a promotion fast and the day before.... They decided to post on their FB page the message title "GAP Free Jeans Giveaway Today" as an event invite.
3. I don't think enough people know what FB Places is and how to use. I read a stat that only 28% only have smartphones. What percentage of them actually use FB Places and shop at the GAP?
4. I read that the employees were not informed of what the GAP was doing. Doesn't look good when you know more than the sales lady about a promotion. I have done this before at Fresh and Easy. I actually walked a worker through their promotion in conjunction with AMEX. I felt good that I talked to them about it but also thought "isn't this the job of the store manager"? See #1. Not enough time to educate...a. Use of FB Places b. How was this going to work if the lines were long (each store probably only had 10,000 pairs/2,551 US stores=approx 4 pairs each store to give away) c. there was also a 40% promo going on if you weren't able to get your hands on a pair of jeans.
5. I also read that the customers didn't understand the promo and just showed up to claim their jeans. Not sure if any were turned away because they didn't have a smartphone to check into or if in conjunction with #4, was it a total fail experience?
6. Fast Company's article said it was a success. No jeans left and over 25,000 said they attended on Facebook. They only sampled a few stores in New York City (shopping mecca of the US) and when you say I'm going to attend an event on Facebook, it is just a push of a button. Not really a good measurement of attendence, it just an assumption.
That said, Facebook places is new and when something is new there is room for improvement and you will always learn from this. I do see my Facebook Friends slowly adopting the Facebook places feature. Personally, I use Foursquare and hope Foursquare does more like Facebook Places in terms of these types of promotions.
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