2010 Monopoly at McDonald’s: 2011 IMA Award Winner

CATEGORY: Best Cross-Platform Promotional Campaign Using Interactive Channels
AGENCY: The Marketing Store
CLIENT: McDonald's

McDonald’s long ago became used to dealing with big numbers. When you serve 64 million customers daily around the globe, lots of zeros come with the territory. But it has set a tough goal for itself over the years since the 1987 U.S. launch of “Monopoly at McDonald’s”: to exceed the game plays and marketing performance of the increasingly successful annual promotion every October.

In recent years, the Monopoly promotion—refined and executed with the help of agency The Marketing Store—has included two basic formats, the peel-and-win instant game that customers can play in stores and the “second chance” online game that lets them use their game pieces to fill in spaces on a digital Monopoly board and try for the really big prizes.

That template continued in 2010 with some new-media tweaks to the online version. For example, players were able to check into McDonald’s stores with a #PlayAtMcD hashtag via Foursquare’s mobile app, then go to www.McDonalds.com to see a map that deployed Monopoly houses and hotels to indicate the current volume of check-in play—a visual way to find “Monopoly at McDonald’s” hot spots during the campaign. Players could also go to the game’s Facebook page or follow @McDonald’s on Twitter and track the same hashtag to learn “Monopoly at McDonald’s” trivia or join discussions about their favorite prizes. And as in 2009, the game included play via mobile short codes from game pieces won instore.

The marketing insight behind this campaign is that while single-shot instant-win play options drive store traffic, giving customers the chance to play a collect-and-win game online creates a more effective loyalty bond and more lasting engagement with the brand.

“The instore game is what’s most critical,” says Ursula Ostrom, vice president of promotions for The Marketing Store, speaking about this year’s iteration of the campaign. “We know that classic, instant-win experience works. But the online game provides a nice complement, and we’ve continued to see increases in our online traffic year over year.” Ongoing online play also draws young adults, a key demographic target for any quick-service restaurant campaign.

Once again, “Monopoly at McDonald’s” achieved its sales aims with a year-over-year sales lift of 5.6% during the game period. But equally impressive were the engagement results, including 30 million codes entered into the online site in just 42 days; 8 million total visits to the PlayatMcD.com website from 5 million uniques; 1.4 million codes submitted from mobile devices; and thousands of new players brought in through the Facebook app and social media more generally.

Once again, the company and its digital agency have set themselves another high bar to aim for in coming Octobers.