Sure, companies might pay retailers for favorable placement or fancy displays for their products, but how do they know whether those ads are working or the displays are set up as requested? Every day, there’s a flood of customers walking past those displays carrying tiny computers with good quality cameras on them. What do those two things have to do with each other?

One company, Quri, is combining sales data with photos, gamification, and small amounts of cash to create a swarm of smartphone-toting “field agents” who can collect on-the-ground data in a hurry. Those field agents are people who receive alerts about jobs and perform them when they have some extra time.

On the business end, Quri promises clients quick and granular data about what their ads and displays look like in stores, current inventory levels of that product, and any other information they need that a random shopper can find out in a five-minute store visit.

Some companies have set up similar projects through mystery shopping companies, but integrating job searching, photos, and geographic location all on one app and one device makes the process easier for “field agents.”

If you want to work for the company, check out their EasyShift app, which right now is only available for devices that use Apple’s iOS. (If you’re looking for an app where you can get money for snapping photos of things, Gigwalk is a similar, well, gig for both iOS and Android.)

Quri launches Impact to help advertisers measure if the billions spent on in-store ads are working [Pando]

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