Media check-in apps have blown up in the past few months. Services like GetGlue and Miso have been partnering with content owners and distributors to offer consumers who check in to shows special stickers, or even discounts at their online stores. Both Miso and GetGlue have partnered with DirecTV to allow users to check in directly through the receiver, offering a more integrated and social TV viewing experience.
While these services have been partnering mostly with content owners and distributors, GetGlue has branched out. This summer GetGlue partnered with Entertainment Weekly and HTC to offer consumers who checked in to a list of summer movies a chance to win free movie passes. This month, GetGlue has once again partnered with Entertainment Weekly to promote check-ins to new fall TV show premieres. But this time around Gap is involved and is offering consumers who check in to these shows a 40% discount on one in-store item.
Though partnering with content owners and distributors, such as HBO and Showtime, has been successful for GetGlue, this new Gap partnership could set a trend and generate further check-ins and partnerships, as well as bring in new consumers. Social networkers enjoy talking about the content they’re consuming—according to Interpret’s New Media Measure™, 30% of social networkers who’ve updated their status in the past month have commented about a movie or TV show they were watching.
We will have to wait and see exactly how well this campaign performs, but it is likely to succeed. Not only can it generate greater traffic to both the GetGlue site/app and Gap stores, it can also generate a whole new audience for TV series, which is of extreme value to the networks. With the proper incentive—like a large discount at a national retail store—even more consumers can be prompted to not only check-in to the service, but also watch new television programming. Similar partnerships are likely to be encouraged by the networks, so it will be no surprise when GetGlue offers another similar promotion.
And now, off to find what show I’ll check in to so I can get my 40% discount.