Albertsons Cos. bolstered its annual Monopoly collect-and-win game this year by adopting a more strategic planning process.BackgroundFrom Feb. 6 through May 7, shoppers at Albertsons chains (excluding Haggen) can play to vie for a piece of this year’s prize pool, which is valued at over $250 million and includes at least one $1 million cash prize, three $1 million vacation homes, a new car, a boat, college tuition, a family vacation, grocery gift cards, and many other prizes and offers.Similar to the grocer's three other core national occasions (summer, anniversary and the "Stock Up Sale"), the goal for the Monopoly effort is to create a holiday where one doesn't already exist while driving sales, attracting new customers and encouraging employees to shop their store, Albertsons’ vice president of grocery vendor management David Spohr and director of shopper marketing Angela Moore said last week during Albertsons Cos.' first-ever summit event in Boise, ID. According to Moore, 32 million weekly shoppers and some 280,000 employees play the game — with a 76% participation rate at launch and a 63% maintained engagement rate — and the program brings in a 7% sales increase year-over-year on participating items. What's NewUnlike years past, Albertsons Cos. aimed to clean up the planning process by being more strategic with the deals it offers from participating brands in order to enable a more seamless activation across chains.Moore said that in past years, the variety of vendor tie-ins made it difficult for stores to execute the program. This year, every grocery sales manager attended the program planning meeting to give their input and get on the same page. Following recommendations from managers, Albertsons this year was more selective when it came to what merchandise tie-ins were accepted into the program. According to Moore, managers didn’t want to have too much of one item or category, but a better variety and assortment of deals and items for customers.“At the end of the day, I think it just makes the program better,” said Moore, indicating that this year's effort has participation from more than 2,300 stores, is deploying more than 1 million displays into stores over the campaign's 13 weeks, and distributes brand images across 30 million game boards and 1.2 billion game tickets.According to Moore, Albertsons is already well on track to exceed 2018 results this year. In another new twist, the grocer is tying the effort to its chainwide loyalty platform Just For U by registering all game players for the program. (Jewel-Osco was the final chain to transition from Albertsons' MyMixx legacy program to Just for U, just a few weeks ago.)In-Store Activation“By all means, we’re recognizing the need for digital … but the reality is, people play on paper,” Moore stated, underscoring the importance of the game's at-shelf element as evidenced by consumer insights gathered each year to further understand what shoppers want and how they want it. This year, Albertsons put its weight behind in-store support including account-specific displays in addition to its own custom P-O-P materials to deliver total shopper awareness. CPG partners this year include Talking Rain’s Sparkling Ice, Coca-Cola Co., MillerCoors, PepsiCo/Frito-Lay, Kraft Heinz and Mondelez International, to name a few.In-store displays include an account-specific “Play by Your House Rules” spectacular that unites beer brands from MillerCoors including Peroni, Coors and Blue Moon. The spectacular promises shoppers $12 off the purchase of any two 20-packs of Coors Light, Coors Banquet, Miller Lite, Miller Genuine Draft or Miller64 via an online rebate. Attached signage instructs shoppers to visit their chain’s website or mobile application to add the rebate to loyalty cards, purchase qualifying product, and receive cash back via PayPal within 72 hours.Albertsons also partnered with Little Rock, AR-based Vestcom, which provides customized shelf-edge execution, to deploy roughly 12,000 shelf tags per store highlighting participating items for the program's duration, according to Moore.Aisle violators additionally call out savings opportunities and prizes including those offered via Fandango, as in the past. This year, however, Albertsons revamped its Fandango offers, which used to offer tokens redeemable for Fandango movies. Instead of simply awarding movie credits, a "Tokens Today" offer lets shoppers choose from an “a la carte” selection of options such as a Just for U digital coupon for a free doughnut. Some displays and signage tie in to other events and trends. Sparkling Ice’s activation, for example, leveraged the hype surrounding March Madness with a “the Bracket is Colorful” aisle display employing a half-court basketball floor cling surrounded by account-specific floorstands and topped with an account-specific Monopoly-themed header sign. In beverage aisles, an account-specific shelf sign also draws attention to the brand.In pharmacy departments, an account-specific four-way unites Johnson & Johnson OTC and personal care brands including Aveeno, Benadryl, Zyrtec and Neutrogena while tying in to the manufacturer's national "Healthy Essentials" platform.At Jewel-Osco, P2PI also spotted a Coca-Cola endcap made of case stacks of its soda brands (including the new Coca-Cola orange vanilla flavor) that tied in to the Monopoly game with an account-specific sign promising bonus game tickets with Coca-Cola purchases. At the same time, a“MyMixx is now Just for U” sign informs shoppers of the loyalty program change, which has been in the works for months.Additional custom P-O-P materials spanned checkout signs, endcap headers, ceiling signs and violators, among others.Digital ActivationAlthough people play on paper, their best chance of winning is actually online, where 70% of participants get a prize. The grocer is expecting 2.3 million online game users and 145 million codes entered, with roughly 7 billion impressions online.“We do work to continue to evolve the online game,” said Moore, pointing to the $1,000 daily award through the online game, as well as others amounting up to $100,000. New this year, Albertsons chains incorporated personalized deals and Monday Monopoly-themed emails containing virtually clippable digital coupons, which according to Moore target over 3 million customers. Albertsons also deployed sponsored Facebook updates leveraging shoppers’ local stores.Other support spans Twitter updates from select chains including Jewel-Osco, home page carousel or banner ads on most chain websites, a dedicated microsite (shopplaywin.com) and mobile app, as well as multiple features and ads in chain digital and print circulars.The “Shop, Play, Win” app continues to be updated, most recently to improve the user experience when tracking game markers.Looking ForwardMoore and Spohr said planning for next year is already underway and will culminate this July.For more Monopoly images from this year and past years, click here.