Pepsi to Roll Two Geo-based Loyalty Efforts for Mobile

Beverage maker Pepsi has announced that it will roll out two location-based mobile campaigns to offer discounts and loyalty points to consumers who use them to patronize nearby restaurant partners.

In the first, slated to launch in mid-May, the beverage maker will roll out Pepsi Loot, an iPhone app that will use the geo-location abilities of users’ mobile phones to identify and direct them to nearby restaurants that serve Pepsi beverages, both chains such as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, IHOP, Popeye’s, Dairy Queen and Arby’s and also participating independents with Pepsi on the menu.

Users who find these locations, or “Pop spots”, with the app and go there will then be encouraged by both mobile alerts and in-store signs to “check in”. Users that check in at three pop spots will earn “Loot” loyalty points that can then be redeemed for music downloads from Universal Music Group, behind-the-scenes video content for mobile phones from Loot featured artists like Jamie Cullum and Katherine McPhee, or discount and free-food offers from Pop Spot member restaurants.

The content will also be made available to visitors to the Pepsi Loot YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/pepsiloot. The Pop Spots geo-location campaign will reportedly include both a Facebook profile page and a Twitter account that users can like and share or re-tweet, and where they can post comments about their experiences.

The app, free to users, will also be searchable by cuisine type. Pepsi says it will promote the app through e-mail, mobile ads and social media.

One benefit to using a mobile app to deliver offers is that the campaigns can operate in close to real time. In theory, a Pop Spot participating restaurant operator will be able to quickly set up a promotion to drive traffic during a slow lunch period or a rainy evening and send that message out to prospects that have already opted in by virtue of having downloaded the Pepsi Loot app.

In addition to the branded Pepsi Loot app, the company has signed an agreement to integrate its marketing offerings with Foursquare, the mobile social game that encourages users to check in to locations, post updates about their activities and earn badges for becoming highly engaged with the sites and merchants listed.

The company will reveal more details about its integration into Foursquare in June. But Bonin bough, director of social and emerging media for PepsiCo, was quoted by the New York Times as saying that the Foursquare campaign could involve alerting the game’s players—currently numbered at about 1 million in the U.S.—that they can earn loyalty points by checking in at retail outlets that sell Pepsi products.

Foursquare already alerts players who check in to discounts and other offers at their location.

So far, Pepsi is the only non-alcoholic beverage seller to partner with Foursquare.