Virtual Gifts Become Real Products - Mars Celebrate Application on Facebook

Facebook users know that you can give your friends virtual gifts, but for the first time, there are gifts that can be redeemed in real life for real products.

Mars Snackfood UK is the first marketer to use this product through an application called Celebrate. When users buy each other a virtual candy bar using PayPal, the recipient also receives a a voucher ID code on their cell phone which can be scanned in stores to redeem the real thing.

“We are very excited to be involved with this new ground-breaking initiative with Facebook,” said Sara Miles of Mars Snackfood UK.

“It will drive traffic and incremental confectionery sales to our PayPoint retail partners in a way that is at the forefront of the digital revolution, whilst offering our consumers a different way of sending confectionery gifts to friends and family,” she said.

“As the boundaries between the virtual and real worlds are being increasingly blurred, our award-winning technology platform M BAR GO will allow users to buy each other sweets at the touch of a few buttons,” said Marc Lewis, founder and chairman of The Light Agency, the company who created the mobile voucher technology.

I never understood the purpose of paying a dollar to buy your friends a computer graphic of a cupcake or even to send a free icon like a “naughty list” around Christmas, but this gift makes sense.