McDonald’s Rolls Out New Monopoly Sweeps With $200 Million In Prizes
Mcdonald’s Corp. today kicks off its newest version of its Monopoly game promising consumers a chance to win bigger and better prizes on- and offline touting more than $200 million in prizes with Best Buy and Hasbro as returning sponsors.
The latest version, McDonald’s Monopoly Best Chance 3.0, is the QSR’s biggest promotion to date in terms of quantity and quality of prizes, said Raul Reyes, McDonald’s director of U.S. marketing, young adult team. The company enhanced its prize pool from last year’s offering by about 50% over last year, he said.
“We have developed an equity,” Reyes said Monday. “Consumers like the game. We’re delivering a lot more.”
Consumers have four ways to play and win during the six-week promotion: collect and win, instant win, Best Buy Bucks and online.
To play online, consumers find game stamps on premium chicken sandwiches, three- or five-piece chicken selects, fry boxes, hash browns and drink cups. Players enter the 10-digit codes to get one token and one dice roll. The token automatically moves the number of spaces rolled. Players can win instantly or collect Virtual Property sets to win.
The online version at PlayatMcD.com has been enhanced this year to offer hourly chances for prizes, including PlayStation Portable systems, PlayStation systems, 20 gigabyte iPods, Motorola RAZR V2 cell phones with $100 worth of service and Canon Powershot digital cameras. Prizes change each week of the promotion. Online players also have a chance to win more than 1 million downloadable cell phone ringtones, digital photo prints, mobile phone games and iTunes song downloads.
Offline, consumers collect stamps to play. McDonald’s printed 60 million game boards for the promotion, which are on bags and in take-one boxes, 10 million more than last year’s game, Reyes said. Top prizes include a Dodge Viper, $1 million and 100 million Best Buy Reward Zone points and a chance to star in an upcoming Buena Vista movie and attend a private screening of the January 2006 release of Glory Road. Other prizes include food prizes, PSPs, iPods, JVC home theater systems and Compaq desktop computers. Consumers will also find a $5 coupon on the game board toward the purchase of the Monopoly 70th Anniversary Edition game— first offering of its kind between McDonald’s and Hasbro, he said.
“We’re going big because McDonald’s likes to engage its customers with fun, new promotions that are in tine with their changing needs,” said Bill Lamar, McDonald’s USA CMO, in a statement.
Consumers can win Best Buy Bucks worth $1 to $3 toward the purchase of Best Buy merchandise. Consumers who buy a large fry or a Premium Chicken Sandwich are guaranteed to win a $1 Best Buy Buck. And new for this year, consumers have a one in three chance of winning $3 in Best Buck Bucks.This is the third year McDonald’s has partnered with Best Buy as part of the Monopoly promotion.
As part of the promotion, McDonald’s has partnered with MySpace.com, one of the fastest growing online social networking sites. The site MySpace.com/mcdmonopoly will tout the Monopoly game and direct consumers to the McDonald’s online game through Oct. 31. Consumers who visit the MySpace.com site can remix the “I Say Hey” song by Latin funk band Kinky. McDonald’s features the song in TV spots.
The Monopoly game runs through Oct. 31 in-store, or while supplies last and through Nov. 15 online. The Marketing Store, Oakbrook, IL handles sweeps. DDB, Chicago handles TV spots.
