Cheryl Cole Billboards Embrace Facebook Places

Facebook Places is being embraced in new billboard to promote Cheryl Cole’s new ablum.

About a month ago Facebook launched its location based service Places in the UK.
Though the service has been slow to catch on, that has not stopped advertisers from looking for ways to take advantage of the new service. Places, allows advertisers to list their businesses in the directory, which then allows for GPS-led target marketing.

Cole’s record company Polydor together with media agency, Mediacom, have taken this idea one step further, allowing passerby to check into the billboard with Facebook places for the chance to win two free tickets (plus travel and hotel) to an ‘X Factor’ show. While there is no way to tell how successful this campaign will be yet, it is definitely a sign of how geo-targeted advertising may work in the future.

This is a first in the UK, however, not a first globally. The location based service Gowalla urged its users to check into a Nets billboard in New York City over the summer.