Q: How can you convince customers to pick up your product?

A: When your giving something back.

Location based check-in mobile applications have exploded recently with people checking in to places to earn points but it's not just places that can be checked in to. What about checking in to a product? In a recent post we discussed Stickybits, a social way to attach digital content to real world objects. A kind of Twitter / Foursquare hybrid with barcode scanning functionality.

A similar service called CauseWorld allows customers to interact with products in a similar way but with the added incentive of giving. Products from brands such as Pampers, Gilette or Tampax can be scanned once a day and each scan goes towards earning badges which are then posted to Facebook. When enough of these are earned, real money can be donated to a choice of charities. What's in it for brands? Well, by giving something back to society they can be seen to be socially responsible. They get to see exactly where and when customers are coming into contact with their products. They get potential customers to physically pick up their product. Their brand is shared on Facebook and perhaps most importantly they can get customers to feel good about them.

What's in it for customers? They can help a charity of their choice quickly and easily without any cost and get to feel good about themselves in the process.

Services like this have not yet reached critical mass but hold great potential for brands to interact with their customers in the ever bluring online/offline space and it is only a matter of time before a non-charity version of this comes about. A global loyalty system for products perhaps?