Now that's a happy meal.

This one is so near to my heart it hurts.

Almost.

In the earliest days of Foursquare - before it tipped, when it was strictly for hipsters and the only "brands" leveraging it as part of a marketing strategy were haute cuisine and artsy boutiques... (oh and then Starbucks). Way back then I had an idea that big chain restaurant companies should steal the platform and leverage the check-in concept to build a simple rewards program that wouldn't require any of the complicated back end POS programming because it would instead run off an existing platform.

As you may have guessed, the client was not ready to dabble in any of that crazy Foursquare nonsense, much less develop their own app. Foursquare was too new. Rewards programs were too complicated. And, what about that fraud risk? Triple yikes.

Kudos to Carl's Jr & Hardees for taking the plunge and building their own app, complete with a "wheel of awesomeness", big prizes and the most compelling reward to fast feeders..........free food!

The punch cards of yesteryear may be old and dated, but appeal of collect-to-get free food is still very much alive.

Here's a look at the app, which has some built-in viral features via Twitter, Facebook and other social networks that will help it gain free exposure too:



You guessed it....ON STRATEGY