Best Buy, McDonald's Play Together

Best Buy helps McDonald's kick off a massive four-week promotion today that marks a series of "first-evers" for the QSR and its 12-year-old Monopoly promotion. It is the first time McDonald's has teamed with a retailer on the Monopoly game, which is making its first appearance since the infamous embezzlement scandal of 2001. It's also the first time the collect-and-win game features additional game pieces on French fry packaging that offer instant-win prizes. In "everyone's a winner" fashion, each piece carries at least $1 in Best Buy Bucks, with increments of $5, $10, or gift cards awarding as much as $5,000. All prizes are redeemable only at the consumer electronics chain and its web site.In addition to TV and radio advertising, Oak Brook, IL-based McDonald's is using such P-O-P vehicles as window posters, tent cards, outdoor pole signs and ceiling danglers to promote the game, which overall is offering thousands of cash, food and other prizes, plus a $1 million payout. Various items from Best Buy will also be awarded, including MP3/PDA handhelds, plasma HDTVs, videogame systems, digital cameras, portable DVD players, laptops, cell phones and home entertainment systems. Best Buy pitches in by distributing game boards in its 570 stores, which will feature extensive signage and run McDonald's spots on high-definition TV sets. The game also will be touted in four straight national weekly circulars. The effort is one of Best Buy's largest promotions to date, and its first alliance with a restaurant. (The chain typically ties in with entertainment companies and media properties.) "We're always looking for unique ways to get into non-traditional" venues, said a Best Buy spokesperson. "And McDonald's is one of the largest and most established businesses." The Marketing Store, Oak Brook, handles the promotion for McDonald's, with Chicago-based Frankel producing P-O-P materials and DDB Chicago taking care of national TV and print ads. Eden Prarie, MN-based Best Buy handles its end in-house. Editor's Note: On Nov. 7, McDonald's Corp. announced it would end the Monopoly game early due to overwhelming participation. McDonald's cancelled national TV spots early last week because stores were running out of game pieces. McDonald's Corp. printed 275 million Best Chance Monopoly game pieces. For its March-April 2003 Winning Time sweepstakes, the fast-food chain distributed 400 million game pieces. McDonald's did not have a retail partner for that campaign.

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