Sporting goods retail giant The Sports Authority is running a Black Friday promotion with location-based mobile social network Foursquare to drive traffic to its 460-plus bricks-and-mortar stores nationwide.

The Sports Authority will give out a total of $10,000 to Foursquare users. The mobile initiative is geared toward raising awareness of The Sport's Authority's brand during this mission-critical time of year.

"Our partnership with Foursquare is an extension of our overall focus on communicating with customers in the channels where they want to engage with us," said Clay Cowan, vice president of ecommerce and digital marketing at The Sports Authority, Englewood, CO. "Location-based services in general give us the ability to bridge the digital and in-store experience, engage a new set of consumers, and get them the best deals on the best gear while they?re in the store or online.

"Sports Authority?s customers are traditionally athletes and athletic families, and this promotion is targeting the most mobile-savvy of that group, as well as a broader younger, mobile-savvy audience," he said.

"We?re simply going where our customers are and hopefully will attract some new customers as well."

Mobile social networking influences purchase decisions
The Sports Authority and Foursquare issued the following call-to-action:

Check-in to cash in
Foursquare + Sports Authority
This Black Friday win $500
1) Check-in to Sports Authority SportsAuthority.com/foursquare
2) Post your check-in to Twitter www.twitter.com/sportsauthority
3) Go shopping and listen for your name in-store

Check-in to any of our Sports Authority store nationwide and publish your check-in to Twitter. You could be randomly selected to win one of 20 $500 Sports Authority gift cards!

We?re giving away four per hour on Black Friday, Nov. 26, between the hours of 10 a.m. EST and 3 p.m. EST.

To download Foursquare, go to your smartphone?s application directory.

Must be present to win. Must claim prize within 10 minutes of in-store announcement.

The Sports Authority?s focus up to this point has been testing different offers and engagement strategies.

Mr. Cowan said that both Foursquare and Sports Authority have strong national brands, and the companies are beginning to leverage them jointly.

"They?ve been great partners, and with this co-promotion, a co-branded Foursquare page on our site, or even Foursquare tweeting about the offer on their company and personal accounts?we think our customers will recognize that both brands are focused on engaging customers with great offers ? all without taking themselves too seriously or being inauthentic," Mr. Cowan said.

This Foursquare ?Check-In to Cash In? promotion is focused on giving Black Friday shoppers a fun and innovative way to interact digitally at our stores for a chance win a $500 gift card on the spot.

Mr. Cowan thinks the Foursquare promotion will build on the credit that its customers give the retailer for value and for fun, and it has focused on keeping the experience and call-to-action simple.

All users must do for a chance to win is check-in to any Sports Authority store on Foursquare, post that check-in to Twitter and go shopping in-store, where they will hear their name announced if they are selected as a winner.

"We think the opportunity of winning a shopping spree on the best sale day of the year is a fantastic offer for our customers, and we hope to see a lot of them on Black Friday taking advantage of it," Mr. Cowan said. "One of our primary goals is testing new marketing strategies, measuring the results across a wide range of metrics and applying what we learn to improve and scale future efforts.

"We are very analytic-driven across every marketing channel. Foursquare is a great channel for us to test different strategies and measure the results at an individual level," he said. "More broadly, location-based platforms like Foursquare, shopkick and Loopt Star play an important role in helping us become a best-in-class multichannel retailer.

"We have committed a lot of resources to accomplishing that, and we?re seeing our customers give us and our partners credit for the innovation we?ve come up with jointly."

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