I’ve been working with the fine folk over at Tequila/ and TBWA to support the development and launch of a new Facebook application for National Express coaches.

The idea is simple: targeting students mainly (although essentially this promotion is open to anyone and everyone in the UK), National Express is offering 40,000 £1.00 coach seats (plus 50p booking fee, ahem) available for travel in the UK during October and November 2008.

The Facebook application (pictured) is being used to promote the idea of ‘you should have been there’ to encourage members of Facebook to add our app to their profile.  By doing so, they can share their crazy pictures of fun they’ve had, vote for other people’s crazy pictures, book tickets for travel and win festival tickets, free travel for a year and lots of goodies from Apple.

Their is above-the-line support, a micro-site and activity taking place in Student Union bars all over the country.  From a marketing perspective (as that’s what this blog focusses on), its a nice example of integrated activity, combining broadcast with a micro-site, whilst blending in targeted online display ads and social media (blogs, Facebook groups etc.).

Give me a week and I’ll post the results, but the campaign officially launches on Monday.  Keep your eyes out for the TV ads and the display ads online.

In light of declining ad revenues from its print directory & use of online services, Yell.com, the online service from Yellow Pages, has launched a new Facebook application called ‘Yell Socialiser’. It was developed by digital advertising agency AKQA and hopes to inspire Facebook users to find new activities to do and places to go.

The Yell Socialiser, currently in beta mode, is an application which allows Facebook members to pick from a range of activity types including “arty stuff”, “pampering”, “eating” or “night clubs”, then select up to five different venues in their chosen area.

These venues are marked on a Multimap map and personalised invites with themed images can then be sent to the user’s Facebook friends. Users can edit and adapt the plan once it is created.

The new Facebook application is Yell’s first move into social networking as part of its strategy to connect with new communities outside of its declining platforms. By combining the core business-finding strength of Yell.com with the additional social functionality of Facebook, Yell hopes to approach a wider audience and interact with it in a different, more social environment.

See www.facebook.com