I blogged about the Starbucks mobile marketing campaign yesterday. I was texting in answers. Today, I tried taking photos of the answers. I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical when I started and wanted to test its limits. I used the LG 9000 camera phone (Verizon) for all of these submissions.

The first question asked for the name of a city. I took a photo of a photo of a major tourist attraction in this city and sent it in. My second try was going to be writing the word (i.e., name of the city) on a piece of paper. I was also sure that it would take much longer to validate than the simple text message. It didn't. I had a response in less than one minute and they gave me credit for the answer. Maybe they really did some ID of the photo? maybe they just gave me credit for sending in any photo? Still, another $5 gift card sent my way.

The second question came. I decided to test my hypothesis of "any picture will work" first. I sent in a photo of my cat. It was rejected. Impressive. I next took a photo of a "beverage" on their web site that I knew to be the correct answer (because I've been through this before with text). It worked. I was awarded another pat on the back.

The next clue comes. I start hunting around in my cupboards for something in a jar that shares the same name. I took a photo of the food label and sent it in. That worked. Fully intrigued now. It may have taken a couple of minutes though. Still not sure if these are being manually scanned.

My last clue of the week comes. The answer is the name of a place. In trying to test the limits, I sent in a photo of a satellite image of the place from Google online. Whoa! They gave me credit. Maybe two or three minutes – seemed like a wait, but not long.

Another clue arrives. It is a food. This time I go to Google Images for a picture of this ingredient in a drink. It seems to be taking a few minutes now as well. This works, too. Pretty cool. Another ice coffee awarded.

Last clue arrives. This time I take a photo of a well known brand that makes/sells this product. Is this a brand known well enough for it's product to be one in the same like Xerox or Kleenex? Wait more than a minute … maybe two and I receive confirmation that my answer is correct. Another suggestion to donate a book to a library arrives.

Need to find out who is behind the campaign. The photos cost more, but it's fun – fun to hunt around for something that symbolizes the products. The Internet is an easy shortcut, but still entertaining.