Social Marketing, Startups and Strategy, Technology

Loopt, a mobile app for sharing a user’s location with selected friends in social networks, wanted to re-launch at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi).

We produced a two-day series of app marketing events and promotions to highlight Loopt’s new feature: the ability for merchants to offer targeted local deals to Loopt users in a given area.

Pre-event Buzz

Our digital marketing campaign began with reaching out to 3,000 attendees via email and social networks to download the app and register to compete for prizes and SXSWi swag.

Festival goers received notifications from the app to perform simple tasks around Austin to snag free round-trip tickets from Southwest Airlines and Jaw Bone boom boxes in a street marketing event that literally got users running.

But there was a catch. To win, you had to be at a geo-targeted location within a short time frame before the offer ended. People scrambled across Austin to claim their prizes and everybody was talking about it afterwards (the original social marketing!).

We brought all those users (and their friends) (and their friends’ friends) together for a “flash mob” party with drinks and dancing in the streets.

Get Ready!

Start
the Game

Step 1:

Download the
Loopt app

Step 3:

Start
Running

Step 4:

Perform
the Tasks

Step 5:

Get
Rewarded

Capturing the Buzz

We were in Austin to record all the users running from place to place — and all the energy of our closing-night party. We produced a cool video to tell the Loopt story to investors.

And here’s the real success story: Green Dot bought Loopt for $43.4M — largely for their move into social commerce.