Check 'N Chew - Offering An Instant Reward For A Foursquare Check In

Check 'N Chew is a fun, simple concept which aims to help brands engage with their customers through Foursquare. Customers are encouraged to check-in through Foursquare to be rewarded with a gumball which is dispensed automatically once a check-in is made (the technical workings are described here).  In the video below you can see Check 'N Chew in action at the American restaurant chain Legal Sea Foods.  The response from a customer who has tried it gets to the crux of why I think Check 'N Chew is a nice experiential idea:

“I like it because it makes Foursquare more interactive... and adds another memory to eating here.”

While the reward is only small it's an additional experience that the customer has when interacting with the brand in their offline environment (yet via online channels).

Tyler deAngelo (the creator, along with Matt Richardson and Ben Light) outlines the benefits for brands:

“The gumball machine represents a value exchange between a customer and retailer where the retailer receives an advertising impression for each check-in and in return the customer gets a gumball.”

I think the concept is a playful and fun tactic for getting customers to engage with a brand through social media. It's clearly not going to revolutionise a brands business, but it's a quirky, light-hearted in-store promotion may work well for smaller, local businesses that need to increase awareness of their service and location.

Have you seen any other examples of brands rewarding their customers instore for engaging with them through their social media channels? Let us know in the comments below!