U.K. department store Debenhams announced a new campaign this week that rewards customers who “like” it on Facebook with Facebook credits—a currency popular among gamers.

Without a doubt, it’s a great way to build brand loyalty for Debenhams, but journalist Charlotte McEleney at New Media Age asks whether campaigns like this will eventually devalue the “like” button. The Debenhams campaign, she writes, “highlights the fine line between ‘like’ being a useful tool to capture customers and fans and creating a meaningless, spammy environment.”

McEleney further states:

If this spurs a host of copycats, with credits merely being used as another trap to get people to ‘like,’ then actually ‘liking’ a brand is going to start to lose its meaning.

Read the full story here.

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