Starbucks launches location-based Christmas campaign in China

Starbucks has partnered with Jiepang in its holiday promotional campaign utilising near-field communication (NFC) chips. NFC-enabled smartphone users in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang can automatically check-in at more than 200 Starbucks locations for a special Christmas deal.

Users swipe their phones across in-store postcards embedded with NFC tags, or manually using the Jiepang app in their phones. From 17 December, Starbucks will unlock rewards of a free size upgrade on any coffee drink for those Jiepang users.

David Liu, Jiepang's founder and CEO, said the partnership with Starbucks was "an opportunity to be among the first to bring (NFC check-ins) to consumers on a social scale. It's more accurate and thus a much more targeted marketing solution for our branding partner.” Jiepang has attracted nearly 1.5 million users since its launch in May 2010.

Lu Huang, marketing director of President Starbucks Coffee Shanghai, said, "The partnership with Jiepang enables us to acknowledge and reward the experience of Starbucks as a 'fourth' place." The home, workplace and Starbucks stores are considered as the first three places of engagement, and the online world will be the fourth one.

Coffee culture in China, a traditionally tea-drinking country, is not prevalent, but Starbucks sees potential of Chinese consumers warming up to coffee and plans to triple its stores in China by 2015, Jinlong Wang, Starbucks’ Asia Pacific president said.