Monopoly at McDonald’s Game wins Best Mobile Campaign

Last year marked the addition of the first-ever mobile component to the Monopoly at McDonald’s campaign, which has been named the Best Mobile Campaign in the 2009 ad:tech Awards.

McDonald’s marketing agency The Marketing Store and mobile marketing partner Telescope were the joint recipients of the award, which recognizes the mobile campaign that best illustrates areas of branding and direct response.

“Each year we look for new and innovative ways to reach and entertain our customers with the Monopoly at McDonald’s promotion,” said Douglas Freeland, director of U.S. marketing at McDonald’s, in a statement. "Mobile game play enables customers to join the fun anytime and anywhere."

McDonald’s created a massive on-pack short code program that enabled consumers to enter the Monopoly at McDonald’s game anytime, anywhere. The game garnered the largest online game response in the history of the promotion, with almost 2 million game codes being entered by mobile users. With a pre-promotion launch on Sept. 23 and full launch on Oct. 7, the game reached millions of consumers nationally via the on-pack promotion.

The new mobile mechanic played a significant role in the pre-promotion, with nearly 15 percent of all codes entered via mobile, proving the value of immediate gratification and entertainment to the McDonald’s customer base. Players could text in their code or enter it online to collect properties. Those who collected an entire property set could win cash and prizes up to $100,000.

This was the first time in the industry that a collect-and-win game could be played across online and mobile simultaneously. McDonald’s has used the mobile channel before. In October, the fast-food giant launched an integrated Web-to-mobile campaign to promote its McRib sandwich. The campaign ran on Myxer's new Bullseye targeted advertising service. The service let McDonald's target Myxer's audience by criteria such as geography, gender, age, music genre and mobile preferences.

“The successful integration of brand creative and tailored technology is what makes this campaign unique,” said Jason George, CEO of Telescope. “The overall strategy was to drive signups and registration and drive people back in-store.”