Walgreens direct messaging those social consumers 'checking in' at its stores

NEW YORK — Walgreens in January has been utilizing a new mobile advertising tool to push out messages targeting consumers who just "checked in" at one of its locations, according to a report published in Ad Age Wednesday.

According to the report, Walgreens sent out 5,000 messages in January via Twitter stating: "Check out Halls' new cough drops in the cold aisle."

The tool is startup LocalResponse, and Walgreens is credited with being the first retailer to use the new service to publish deals or promotions for consumer packaged goods. Walgreens has an exclusive with LocalResponse for one year, the report added.

For the full report, click here. For a video of the Ad Age report, produced by Mashable Video, click here.