Cheryl Cole boards grip Facebook Places competencies: Facebook Places tech is being embraced by a new billboard campaign for Cheryl Cole’s new album. Launched in August, the platform allows advertisers to list their businesses in the Places directory to allow for GPS-led targeted marketing.

But now Cole’s record company Polydor, together with Mediacom, is taking it one step further and asking passersby to check into a billboard using Facebook Places. In the new  UK-wide outdoor campaign for Cole’s forthcoming ‘Messy Little Raindrops’ album, fans who check into the billboard will be taken to the singer’s  Facebook page.

Here they have a chance to win two free tickets (plus travel and hotel) to one of her ‘X Factor’ shows.
Whether a billboard counts as ‘place’ is up for debate, how ever it is still location-specific. The real importance is addressing the ‘right here, right now’ mobile generation with a call to action and engagement albeit via a rather traditional medium.

It’s a first for the UK but not for the world. According to TechCrunch, a Nets billboard on the side of a building in New York City this summer urged people to check in with Gowalla. “It is not clear how successful these billboard check-in campaigns will be, however. It just seems more natural to offer promotions tied to actual places of business,” adds Tech Crunch’s Erick Schonfeld. “But as the check-in concept expands from checking into a place to checking into brands, it could become more of a simple call to action.”The future is here, folks.