Fashion houses have been especially quick to jump on board the Instagram bandwagon, such as the Art of the Trench project from Burberry. The brand encouraged fans to don their trench coats and submit photos via Instagram, which were featured at artofthetrench.com alongside professional “trench coat portraits” by The Sartorialist’s Scott Schuman. Those promiscuous folks at Sartorialist also teamed up with Tiffany & Co. to encourage fashionable couples in New York and Paris to document their True Love In Pictures via Instagram, as shown in the image to the right. But to really pull the whole thing together, the pair offered a special Instagram photo filter that users could apply to their lovely images.

Instagram’s aforementioned Seamlessness also makes it an ideal platform for promotions and sweepstakes, as entering can involve little more than a photo and a quick tag. Levi’s is using the service to find new faces for their 2012 brand campaign by asking folks to tag images of themselves with #iamlevis. The early results seem to be attracting quite the spectrum of participants, ranging from American Apparel-y hipsters to shirtless muscle-bound jocks. Oh, and this guy. We hope he wins.

GE is similarly tapping Instagrammers to find a “social media photographer,” a position that would require the winner to take behind-the-scenes photos at GE’s jet engine facility for sharing on sites like Instagram and Tumblr. Entrants are tasked with bringing one of GE’s four foci to life (Moving, Curing, Powering and Building) and tagging their images with #GEInspiredMe. (You can see some of the selections below). Regardless of who wins the contest, we find it particularly interesting that a brand as complicated and amorphous as GE could use this promotion to clearly and simply communicate their core areas of expertise. Moreover, like the Levi’s campaign mentioned earlier, the brand is leveraging the Collective Curation of their fans to compile a large collection of compelling images of their products and processes. These assets can subsequently be used in all kinds of smart ways in the future, even if the respective marketers don’t know exactly what that’ll be just yet. But along the way, these Instagramming brands have already developed (pun intended) a deeper engagement with their most expressive consumers.

The photo-sharing app Instagram is perhaps the most intriguing example of a platform built for Collective Curation. (Actually, it’s also a damn fine tool for establishing your brand as a Guru, but we’ll get to that later.) The app is popular among users because of its simple photo filters and incredibly easy sharing functions, but also because it implements a Twitter-like tagging system that lets the images do the talking in these conversations. For instance, The Washington Post has asked readers to document the local impacts of the recession via Instagram by tagging their photos with the #econdebate tag (a couple are shown above). The collected images spark a multifaceted and compelling debate far more effectively than a vitriolic comment section ever would. (We’ve used a similar strategy on Upshot’s own homepage to showcase what’s inspiring us – look for the filmstrip at the bottom of the window.)

But the app isn’t just simple for users. An ideal example of Seamless Tech, Instagram’s flexible platform makes it easy for marketers to compile (and curate) photo galleries into their websites, Facebook pages, or other digital properties. For instance, the band The Vaccines managed to crowdsource a music video by asking attendees at their shows to tag their Instagram pictures with #vaccinesvideo. The band selected their favorite shots and incorporated them into the video shown below. And if an indie rock outfit can pull this off, just imagine what big-time brands like GE, Starbucks, and Levi’s could do. We’ll show you in part two of this post, coming tomorrow.

In January, 2011, Starbucks launched its Mobile Card payment program available on most smartphones. SMART. No doubt you’re already on your phone at 8:30 in the morning while ordering a Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte, so it’s easy to flash your “Touch to Pay” barcode and be on your way. The app replaces your reloadable Starbucks card (while keeping your rewards intact), and you can preload it from your bank account within the same screen.

With the release of Google Wallet, users can now pay with a simple tap at Mastercard paypass terminals. For now, this is advancement only for those with Google phones…and a Citi Mastercard. But, with this technological groundbreaking device, users are also able to receive offers and store loyalty points via the app.  We’re attached to our phones, so what better way to reach us directly when we’re making a transaction.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shopkick offers rewards for simply stepping inside a store and scoping out merchandise. It displays deals and discounts close in proximity to your location. The more you peruse, the more points are earned for redemptions ranging from clothes to electronics.

While cashless-ness becomes the norm, we can only assume that consumers will rely less on the benjamins, but let’s not forget about Future Fear. A lot of emphasis is placed on convenience and practicality when we look at technological enhancements. It’s our job to find the perfect balance between convenience and trust.

What we can gather from our own shopping habits is that we rely heavily on the convenience factor, no doubt about it. We’ve become increasingly comfortable with everything being accessible through our phones. We can purchase a Groupon, find our way to Alaska and back, and even count the steps we take around the office with our smartphones.

“What? I can’t just show you the e-mail, I have to print it out?!”

As marketers, we should reach our consumers as soon as they walk into the store, making it harder not to refuse a great deal on the very same phone used to swipe and pay. It has been reported that 20% of smartphone users have compared prices while shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. Additionally, 15% of smartphone users have redeemed a mobile coupon (ladies more so than gentlemen). Let’s take advantage of these time-saving, less paper-wasting social platforms that deliver instantaneous results without hassle. Smartphones aren’t going anywhere, so creating more convenient methods of in-store redemption and offers will put us ahead of the game—and the checkout line.

What will it take for YOU to go CASH-LESS?

Then put your vote where your mouth is. Below, you’ll find links to our two proposed panels for 2012. Please take less than a minute to register at http://panelpicker.sxsw.com (or just log in if you voted last year) and give a “thumbs up” to the following two panels. (And then, tweet / post / email / scream at / message everyone you know to do the same!) The deadline is Friday, September 2^nd, so act fast!

“The Power of Feedback Loops in Mobile Marketing”
Feedback Loops are powerful tools to shape, change and evolve behavior, and their natural integration into smartphones brings enormous promise to incorporating feedback loops in nearly every aspect of daily life.

“What Do B2B Customers Want from Social Media?”
Most B2B brands have acknowledged the potential of social media for their business objectives, but what is the real roadmap for marketing success via B2B social media?

Thanks, now go vote!

The video above is the latest installment in our Upshot Smartshot webinar series, and complements our recent Potty Posting that introduced the concept of marketers with Twitterphobia. This 15-minute episode goes a step further, assuaging marketers’ three biggest fears about the service:

• What should you say?
• What should you do?
• What should you make?

If you’ve missed any of our previous Smartshots, scoot on over to our YouTube playlist for the whole series. Of course, you wouldn’t have missed those if you’d just follow us on Twitter already, at twitter.com/upshotblog. Since you’ve now vanquished your Twitterphobia, you’ve got no excuse!

But the four-wheeled madness doesn’t stop there. Check out the above race from Hot Wheels, featuring a three-dimensional obstacle course projection-mapped on a building in Sydney. (Thanks to Karlin from MUSE for the tip.)

Speaking of races, check out the above clip from a Cornetto projection in Istanbul. In the midst of a big ol’ street party, the brand projected an interactive casual game where onlookers could compete against each other using their phones. As if an interactive projection didn’t have enough stopping power! It’s great to see that, no matter how many projection examples we share, someone always seems to be raising the bar on what’s possible with this medium.

• Social validation is the primary motivator on the web. We share on Facebook in order to receive comments and likes. We post to Twitter with the hope of being re-tweeted. We upload to Flickr so our photos will be favorited. Keep this in mind when considering how to motivate consumer behaviors.
• Why does 4chan stimulate such… um… “creative” output? Because there’s no identity and no archive; i.e. it’s anonymous and ephemeral. It’s a survival of the fittest of ideas, where the content is more important to the creator.
• Anonymity can be a powerful stimulus for creativity. The cost of failure is high when it’s tied to your real identity, which impedes risk-taking.
• When selling in boundary-pushing innovations, recognize when the pushback is emotional instead of rational. Data will not overcome emotional doubts.
• The Old Spice Guy’s “Response” campaign is perhaps the greatest digital campaign ever, but the creators don’t see it as an exercise in digital. They describe it as an integrated success story. It worked because the character had been established across a variety of media channels, including good ol’ television.
• Still skeptical about advertising in social games like Farmville? Keep this in mind: the average weekly audience of Farmville is 31 million players. For context, the average weekly audience for American Idol is 26 million viewers. Social games are the new soap operas.
• Did you realize that Hispanic consumers are far more likely to use smartphones than other ethnic groups? In fact, a VP at Nielsen went so far as to say that mobile is the entertainment access point for Hispanic consumers.
• What’s the right equation for generating word-of-mouth? According to General Mills, it’s all about expectations. If you don’t meet them, you generate negative word-of-mouth. If you do meet them, there’s no word-of-mouth. It’s when you exceed expectations that you generate positive word-of-mouth .
• If you trigger the right sequence of “baby steps,” you can generate significant behavioral changes in the long run.
• The challenge for traditional brands in the modern world is that branding has been all about perfection and maintaining control. In today’s world, information is ever changing, consumers are real people rather than idealized targets, and brands are seen as authentic when they’re imperfect.

Mind blown? No problem. We’re pulling together all the pieces from our SXSWrapup tomorrow.

Click the image below for the full-size Cracking the Code infographic!

For starters, both Dennis Crowley (co-founder of foursquare) and Josh Williams (founder of Gowalla) think their core features are… well, kinda boring. In their respective panels, each described “location” and “check-ins” as inherently uninteresting. And they’re right. The fact that you are at a venue is horribly uninteresting without some additional context about what’s happening there, who you’re with, or why you’re really there. Locations become relevant and significant to the consumer only when they’re combined with the emotions, memories, and experiences associated with that place. This sentiment was summed up nicely by Crowley: “It’s good that we have a large places database; it’s better that we have an interesting places database.” But even with that additional context, that single data point still isn’t as interesting as a collection of your check-ins over time. In other words, when the context around your location is aggregated and archived over the long run, your check-ins start to tell a story. And speakers across SXSW agreed that for LBSs to grow beyond the geeks and reach the masses, they must make these stories more compelling. To paraphrase Williams, it’s the challenge of making a check-in at Starbucks as exciting as a check-in at the Golden Gate Bridge. Boy, we’ve got some work to do.

Fortunately, the key players have plenty of ideas about how to make this work. Gowalla seems to be planning a service that will help their users easily compile a virtual scrapbook of their memories after going on vacation. If you check in at your home airport, a different airport, then your home airport again, Gowalla might automatically bundle all of your check-ins, updates, and photos that occurred between your departure and return, providing you with a turnkey way to share these memories on sites like Facebook. (Uh, Disney Vacation Club team? This is where you should be paying attention.) Storytelling is even more important for brands that aren’t logically tied to a place, since the only way these brands can interact in the location space is by being a lens that focuses on what’s relevant to their consumers in physical locations. For instance, Crowley gave a hypothetical example in which Pampers could help new parents find playgrounds and parks in their immediate vicinities.

Aside from the hypotheticals, each day seems to bring a new service that is using location to provide enormous utility for consumers. Cabulous is an app (and mobile website) that provides users with a real-time map of available cabs near their current location. As shown in the image at the top of this post, all they need to do is tap on the cab that’s nearest, and the driver will be hailed and provided with the user’s location. There’s also the “Don’t Eat At” app, which foursquare users can add-on if they want to be immediately notified when they’ve checked-in to a restaurant that’s at risk of being shut down for repeated health violations. The more you know… can be a little gross.

So, the stories are coming along, the utility is there, and the base of users is tiptoeing towards critical mass. LBS growth has nowhere to go but up, as long as there’s not a gigantic elephant in the room that could possibly derail their adoption, right? Oh, wait, we almost forgot: the process of checking-in still kinda sucks. Fortunately, everyone in the LBS space is well aware of the problem. Gowalla’s Williams describes check-ins as a band-aid that’s been necessary to get past initial privacy concerns and to generate enough data the make these services relevant. (With foursquare touting half a billion check-ins in the past year, we’d say that’s working.) But even with check-ins being a pain in the butt, users have been trained to understand that check-ins contribute to something useful in the long run, even if there’s not an immediate reward. And if they haven’t understood that before, they understand it now, thanks to the new foursquare interface that we covered pre-SXSW. In addition to helping you explore new places that coincide with your check-in history, check-ins are now accompanied by information like “you haven’t been here in ten months,” or “you just checked in with Kiki – that’s the first time you saw him since you checked-in together at Dark Lord Day,” and other tidbits of information that help you construct your own stories of exploration.

So, if the check-in is only a temporary solution, what’s next? It’s hard to say, but there are some telling signs. The American Express partnership we discussed pre-SXSW is certainly interesting, as it makes this process completely seamless for both consumers and participating marketers. (By the way, if you missed this morning’s update, we’ve got some interesting new information about that partnership.) It’s also becoming increasingly clear that many phones in the next year or two will include NFC capabilities, which could significantly simplify the check-in process. For instance, if foursquare provided venues with “tap here” stickers that included embedded NFC tags, users could check-in just by tapping their phone against that sticker when entering. And if it gets that much simpler to become part of the story of location, we think this space is bound to get a whole lot more interesting.

Before we headed out to SXSW Interactive, we tipped you off to foursquare’s new partnership with American Express (at the very bottom of that post). However, in all the hubbub surrounding SXSW, it took a while for the details about that partnership to emerge. Now that more information is available, it’s only fair that we tie up those loose ends.

First things first: this is only a test. If this were an actual application, you would have seen a foursquare special that looks like the image above, in which you could add this deal to your (pre-registered) AmEx with the tap of a button. The deal would be done as soon as participants used their card; no need to show the server, no need for the server to enter the discount, and no need for the merchant to figure out how to redeem the offer. Everything happens seamlessly on the back end, with the consumer receiving his or her deal within 3-5 business days. While the test wrapped up at the conclusion of SXSW Interactive, it sure sounds like AmEx is planning on rolling this out on a larger scale in the coming months.

But the most eye-opening piece that emerged about this partnership? It wasn’t built on foursquare’s API [oops - updated in response to Tristan's comment below] There was some playing-nice between foursquare’s API and the API from American Express… wait, American Express has an API? Yes, American Express has an API, meaning that developers can produce all kinds of value-added services that work on the back-end of American Express cards. That’s definitely something worth watching in the near future.

Oh, and don’t worry, the folks at AmEx are no dummies. Their API doesn’t share transaction data, card numbers, or merchant info, which also means that anyone who loses their foursquare-enabled phone is not at risk of exposing their AmEx number. (They are at risk of revealing their top scores in Angry Birds, which may be more traumatic.)

So, yeah, that little coup was bigger than the big names involved. We’ll be keeping a very close eye on this partnership when it eventually rolls out. But, for now, we’ve got much bigger things to talk about regarding the location story…