NEW YORK ? Apparel and accessories retailer H&M delivered 10.6 million branded impressions to mobile users checking into venues in the MyTown location-based mobile social game, according to a panelist at the Digiday:Apps conference.

H&M partnered with MyTown to drive awareness of its products and encourage engagement with its ?The Blues? promotion that featured the retailer?s blue-colored items. MyTown users who checked-in to H&M stores or other nearby locations were able to earn points that could be used to buy branded H&M virtual goods in the application.

?For us, it was interesting that the promotion was using virtual goods and virtual points to incentivize real-time activity,? said Rachel Veiga, associate media director at MediaCom, Middletown, NY. ?For brands like H&M, that?s key.

?It?s about driving foot traffic to stores, not just getting them to play,? she said. ?We?re working on the next evolution of this ? how do we get people to purchase??

The ?Brands and Apps: It?s all about social activity? panel discussion was moderated by Chris Cunningham, CEO of appssavvy, New York.

The other panelists were Damon Burrell, vice president of marketing at MTV, New York; and Oz Solomon, cofounder of Social Graph Studios, Toronto.

Booyah is the developer of MyTown, and Appssavvy, which serves as Booyah?s direct sales team, facilitated the H&M partnership.

Driving engagement via MyTown
The campaign, which launched earlier this year was the first partnership between MyTown and any brand (see story).

H&M?s objective was to engage the 2 million-plus users on MyTown and let them know about the various items for sale in the Blues collection.

MyTown users accumulated 700,000 check-ins over the course of the campaign.

Additionally, H&M became the most searched retail brand on MyTown.

?We had to build excitement and get people into the store to find clothes maybe they wouldn?t normally go in for,? Ms. Veiga said. ?We wanted to reach people around the stores and get them into the stores.

?How do you leverage social activity already happening in these [digital] locations and drive them to the real location itself?? she said. ?We decided to reward users who interacted with MyTown, checking into locations nearby H&M."

Location and product check-ins
Users who checked-in to certain locations near H&M stores received messages about the retailer?s items.

Checking-in earned participating MyTown members points, which they could use to buy H&M-branded virtual goods from The Blues collection.

Here is a screen grab of H&M virtual goods in the application:

Users could then find actual pricing information for the virtual items.

H&M is also connecting with potential customers via a new MyTown feature that lets members check-in specific products to earn points.

MyTown users can check-in products by scanning their bar codes or snapping a picture with their mobile phones.

Members logged 350,000 product check-ins within a week of the feature?s launch.

H&M is using these check-ins to drive awareness of its Denim Day promotion.

MyTown members who scan H&M products are automatically entered into a sweepstakes for a $500 dollar gift card.

Regular users of the application have responded well to the branded promotions, per MediaCom.

?MyTown users seeing a brand in the application for the first time gave a very positive response,? Ms. Veiga said. ?It wasn?t intrusive and it tied into something they were already doing.

?We were just giving them points for something they were interested in,? she said.

Final Take
Peter Finocchiaro, editorial assistant at Mobile Marketer, New York