Will it work? luxury+social media.. same target audience??Neiman Marcus challenges in-store customers to earn mobile game rewards -Luxury Daily-Mobile

Neiman Marcus challenges in-store customers to earn mobile game rewards - Luxury Daily - Mobile:

It would be curious to see.. when I go to Neiman Marcus.. do not see many social media type audiences..

It would be great to see if this would really work.. not likely both parties would be happy to share their findings..

its like Harrods join forces with foursquare (who has many more users btw!) or with the uk local rummble.. are they even still around?

fact of the matters are these:

1>Internet, people rarely pay for things, except things that are standardised and have slight/better discounts, e.g. banking/insurance/DVDs/film/theatre tickets etc.

2>Mobile, people pay even more rarely, mostly subset of 1>

3>social media mostly make money for the platform and technology providers who have scale... number of the B2C successes are few & far between (unless it is part of the wider marketing mix, like for Dell etc.) to add incremental value..

4> truth is that people would still trust/prefer offline relationships..

therefore, this would only work if Neiman Marcus is using this campaign to:

a.) as call to action of their present customers who has an Android phone. (do they know who already has an android phone? and do they know how to download this application in-time for the 'excitement'??)

b.) using the application to reach more target audience for Neiman Marcus... (personally don't think they overlap much... but I have no clue, please do tell me if you have the information!)

but then again, it is great that they are doing this, as otherwise, we will have no innovations.. but it would only help if they share at least some high level insights..

so much is at stakes though (luxury B2C brand, and further series of fund raising), most likely this will be last we hear of it!

"Game face
The partnership between Neiman Marcus and Scvngr is an example of how a luxury brand can be an innovative leader in the retail industry by leveraging a social game.

Incorporating the interactive game with the retailer’s Big Night Out campaign creates a stronger community engagement.

“Scvngr has over a million players nationwide and we liked the idea of interacting and engaging with a new audience,” Ms. Gierhart said. “We believe that the digital- and mobile-based program Scvngr developed will appeal to this customer by creating a fun and interactive shopping experience.”"