Sometimes you see something so compelling you just know it’s the start of something big. The 7-iCollection iPhone app recently launched by Green Tomato for 7-Eleven Hong Kong fits that bill.

Simply put, it uses the phones “augmented reality” feature (if you haven’t seen this, the easiest way to understand it is look at “Monocle” within the Yelp app) to collect items hidden in 7-Eleven stores. So the user walks into a store, holds up his/her phone until a “collectible” (in this case teddy bear) shows up, and then captures it by jiggling the phone. You can then exchange items with your friends, and once you get a complete collection, receive a prize.

This is the modern-day version of the Pepsi bottle cap promo of my youth, where each had an NFL team helmet and you got some huge prize if you collected all 28 (the NFL of the late 1970s). We all bought Pepsi whenever we could and traded with our friends in a mad pursuit.  Pretty soon it turned out all of us had 27 teams and none could get his hands on that elusive Baltimore Colts (before Peyton Manning) cap — rumor was that only five of those were made in the entire country.   Some Pepsi marketer should get a gold star — this campaign is still remembered by at least one kid 30 years later.

The power of campaigns like this 7-Eleven Hong Kong implementation may be similar:

— Most important, it’s fun and addictive, and so will drive downloads and usage. This isn’t another “store locator” app; instead it gives the user a real payoff for downloading it.

— It drives traffic to multiple locations.

— The Collectibles/Prizes can be tied into whatever a retailer is trying to push.

— Collaboration among friends builds brand awareness.

— Users download the marketer’s app (e.g. 7-Eleven), not a third-party app like Foursquare or Gowalla.

— And unlike the Pepsi version of the 1970s, the retailer has the option to promote additional products/coupons through the app.

Certainly there will be many iterations/improvements on this concept — but for marketers interested in location-based campaigns, this is surely an approach worth considering. This app might just be a little glimpse into the future.

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Tobias Dengel is CEO of WillowTree Apps Inc., a mobile applications developer. He is also BIA/Kelsey’s new technical editor and will be posting regularly on mobile-related topics. The views he expresses are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of BIA/Kelsey.

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Lots of news coming from mobile local app provider WHERE today. Just a week after it opened up its WHERE Ads local ad network, it has launched a new Web site and officially changed its name from uLocate to WHERE.

The company not only provides the WHERE local app but is also an app production house, which my contacts in the publishing world tell me has solid technical chops. It will continue to build this side of its business but the name change reflects a friendlier consumer brand, in line with the familiarity of its flagship local app.

As for the Web site launch, this is similarly meant to solidify the brand and create a more integrated local experience between PC and mobile device. True to the cloud computing trends driving a great deal of online and mobile media, the site lets you log on (or register) to view and manage your local activity, such as the places you’ve checked in from mobile.

Other features, from the press release, include:

• Keep track of all the places they’ve been to in the past, those they want to go to in the future, and their reviews with Placebook
• Record their current location with Check-in
• Share their WHERE activity with their social network via Facebook and Twitter
• Search, discover and review local restaurants, businesses and services
• View nearby concerts, sports games and other events

In terms of creating continuity between the online and mobile experiences, Foursquare has a similar site but it’s not as functional (though we hear Web site updates are coming).

Lastly, some news from our Marketplaces 2010 conference next week. WHERE VP of Product David Chang is joining us onstage to discuss mobile monetization in a segment that caps off our mobile forum. He’ll join MoVoxx, LocalAdExchange and CallSpark in a discussion about the growing area of mobile local ad networks and monetization. We’re expecting a great session.

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If you’ve been reading TechCrunch this week, you’ll know (or be annoyed by repeated claims) that this year’s SXSW conference will be all about location-based mobile apps. They’ve dubbed it the “location wars.”

Everyone is doing and thinking about location targeting and mobile. Twitter has been doing it for months with its geolocation API and Friday went live with automatic location tagging (opt-in) on its own domain. Loopt and others in this space have been doing it for years, while Facebook and Google loom quietly.

Meanwhile, usage skyrockets. Foursquare has 500,000 users and had its biggest day yesterday with more than 250,000 check-ins. Anecdotically, I went from being the only one of my friends using Foursquare three months ago, to most of my extended social circle now using it (and fruitlessly competing for my mayorships — yes you, Jen).

But the interesting part is how mobile location apps have evolved. Based on privacy and other issues, the check-in has replaced pervasive location tracking as the catalyst for communication. It’s a clever form of opt in. Realizing this, other leaders in the mobile local space such as Loopt and Yelp have integrated check-ins in the past few months.

For the local space, this is relevant because check-ins revolve in some way around physical places — often a business — rather than a meaningless lat/long reading. The next step, of course, is monetization. How do you create a lead out of someone raising his or her hand and saying, “Here’s where I am, and (by implication) here’s what I’m interested in?”

Foursquare has begun to turn check-ins into leads, as have MyTown and Brightkite. And more check-in services continue to come out of the woodwork (see Causeworld). Many will die in an inevitable shakeout, but the overall trend is here to stay. More importantly, this will be the basis for new monetization structures that take form in the coming months.

Of course, none of this is terribly new; we and other local analysts have been eyeing it for some time. But it’s reaching mainstream awareness (Foursquare’s TV ads don’t hurt). Over the next 10 days, SXSW will cause a bump in usage that will bring it even closer to the mainstream — or closer to the questionable $12.7 billion LBS market that Juniper Research predicts for 2014.

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Location-based services continue to roll out left and right. TechCrunch won’t stop saying this year’s South By Southwest conference will be all about location (except for this contrarian piece by Paul Carr). We mostly agree.

But with all the start-ups crowding the space and rapidly growing, albeit from a small base, Facebook looms as the category killer. With 400 million global users (100 million of them active mobile users), it could have quite an impact when it inevitably “turns on” geolocation for status updates.

There’s been speculation about when it will do this, including here. But today, the first tangible signs were shown in a New York Times Bits post that quotes unnamed sources within Facebook. The venue for the launch will not surprisingly be the annual F8 developer’s conference in April.

The update will involve some form of automatic geotagging for the status updates that have become the main dish of the social network. Like Twitter has done with its API (and today on its own site), this will automatically append status updates with location.

This will be based on GPS, Wi-Fi triangulation, IP address, explicit notification (think Foursquare-like check-ins) and/or users’ account information. Like Facebook’s recent regulation of status updates, it will also undoubtedly be governed by users’ opt-in privacy settings.

That last part is critical, and involves one of the reasons Facebook has taken a relatively long time to do this. With a company like Facebook that has all eyes and forms of scrutiny on it (especially being a social network), nearly all moves are met with privacy backlash.

So with new feature rollouts, it’s one step at a time to not rustle too many feathers. And of course location tagging is at the top of the list of privacy advocate seething factors. We’ll see what this eventually entails, but for now you can be sure that when location gets turned on, it will be huge.

The third-party apps and sites that utilize Facebook Connect will plug right into this, and there will be lots of implications for the local space. The Times agrees, stating this will be less of a threat to the Foursquares of the world than to Google’s local efforts — an area Facebook as been eyeing for a while.

One of the people familiar with the project said the company was not trying to beat the smaller location-based social networks, such as Loopt, Foursquare and Gowalla.

Instead, Facebook wants to go head-to-head with Google in the fight for small-business advertising. Facebook redesigned its business pages last year, with the hope of offering more features for small-business owners. According to Facebook, the Web site currently hosts more than 1.5 million local businesses from around the world.

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The dial has been turned up lately on mobile location targeting  — within social media, local search, and advertising contexts.  The latest news comes from mobile ad network MoVoxx, which has enhanced its location targeting with Useful Networks‘ PlaceWhere platform. From the release:

MoVoxx’s GeoSense™ mobile ad platform ingests location data from Useful Networks’ PlaceWhere™ platform, which connects with wireless carriers and other sources to aggregate location data. PlaceWhere is built on the principle of protecting consumer privacy, ensuring location data is never shared without explicit consent from the end user. This unique approach works on all phones connected to the network, vastly extending reach beyond traditional GPS and downloadable app-based solutions. PlaceWhere offers ad networks, mobile marketers and application developers a simple set of APIs to accelerate time-to-market and reduce costs for launching location-aware products and services.

As we discussed in a recent interview with Movoxx, it’s leading the way with location based ad targeting for small businesses (via local channel partners). The company sees potential in this SMB segment as well as national advertisers that want to target users in specific locations where they have interests.

Better location targeting will assist on both fronts, and we should see more from MoVoxx along these lines. Also expect similar moves from other mobile ad networks that will move towards the acute location targeting that the mobile device is capable of, and that advertisers will increasingly demand.

We’ll hear more on this subject at BIA/Kelsey’s Marketplaces Conference, March 22-24, where MoVoxx CEO Alec Andronikov will speak.

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Loopt continues to evolve from a location based social network to more of a local search utility. This comes during a general shift of market attention towards location based mobile apps and the commercial intent that can be inherent in their use.

Yesterday Loopt took another step towards monetizing some of these local interactions by partnering with Mobile Spinach. The partnership will provide Loopt users with geotargeted coupons and promotions for local businesses.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed but this represents Loopt’s first relationship with a local content aggregator. In the past it has done direct deals with national advertisers with localized constituents, such as Jack in the Box. It will roll out first in San Francisco and be available to users of Loopt’s smart phone apps (not mobile web yet).

This follows a string of recent moves for Loopt including, adding local ratings and reviews, integration of Foursquare-like “check-ins”, and development of a customer loyalty program (to be rolled out soon). Expect for this evolution to continue over the coming months.

Loopt CEO Sam Altman will elaborate on company’s directions in the mobile local space during BIA/Kelsey’s Marketplaces Conference in San Diego, March 22-24.

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