H&M will promote its new “The Blues” collection. The MyTown game enables players to unlock rewards and earn points by checking-in from real-world shops and locations.

“H&M, through this campaign, is trying to reach a highly-engaged urban audience, which is perfect as it operates 200 stores in cities across the United States,” said Rachel Veiga, associate director of MediaCom, H&M’s New York-based agency.

“The app is targeted to these cities specifically and is further targeted to users who check-in to retail or nearby H&M locations within these cities,” she said. “This way the H&M messaging and items offered becomes more relevant to the user as the end goal is to encourage these same people to visit the actual H&M store.

“Again, MyTown is about buying and owning your favorite stores and hangouts, making it a great app to reach H&M’s target.”

H&M is a clothing store which offers fashionable items at affordable prices. The Blues collection mixes garments across an array of departments in different shades of blue and denim.

MyTown from Booyah – a developer and publisher of mobile social games that bring together elements of the real world and the digital world – claims that it recently surpassed one million registered users and is growing at a rate of more than 100,000 per week.

Here is a screen grab of the application:

MyTown features the new H&M collection and players who “check-in” to a retail, shopping center or female centric location – such as a spa or hair salon – within a city where an H&M store can be found, will be prompted to unlock H&M virtual “Blue” items.

The “Blue” items are clothing pieces that are part of the collection.

Additionally, the items provide in-game points and generate awareness of H&M.

MyTown has a partnership with Citysearch.com. It has used Citysearch’s maps and locations to aggregate information about the different real world locations that users can check-in to and virtually buy.  Another sponsorhip of MyTown is Quizno’s. 

Here is another screen grab of the application:

Using the application, gamers can buy and own their favorite locations, collect rent when other people check-in to their stores and upgrade their shops to increase its value.

“MyTown is the most popular location-based social game with over 1.2 million users,” said Keith Lee, CEO of Booyah, Palo Alto, California.

“The game aspect is to draw users in an engaging killer product,” he said. “At the same time, MyTown offers real value to users by blending real world benefits with the virtual world. Right now, MyTown offers branded virtual items based on proximity to real-world retail locations.

“In the case of H&M, items provide in-game points, while generating aware of H&M and ultimately encouraging users to visit their nearby H&M store to find these pieces.”

This is a first campaign that H&M has done with MyTown and is a result of a new partnership in  which appssavvy – a direct sales team that connects hundreds of application on social platforms – is now exclusively serving as Booyah’s direct sales team.

MyTown is available for the iPhone and iTouch, but Booyah will expand it for other smartphones.

“Our plan is to not only roll out onto other mobile platforms but to also expand internationally into new markets very soon,” Mr. Lee said.

“The great thing is that the value and premise behind MyTown will easily work across markets and platforms,” he said.