Late last year I embarked on the McDonald’s Monopoly
Challenge. Why? Well that’s a very good question, but basically to find out –
How possible is it to actually win something?
The idea came to me when I was sitting in my car peeling the
Monopoly stickers off my large fries and coke. As I sat there hoping to land
one of the big prizes in the promotion, I thought, just how possible is it?
It’s a question I got to answer soon enough, despite
collecting 105 stickers, I was eventually left with didly squat.
McDonald’s aren’t very happy I’m writing this article. As
soon as I made my first inquiries with the international juggernaut’s corporate
affairs team I had them back peddling. I received three calls within the first
three hours.
I wish they’d show that kind of hustle when they’re putting
my order together.
On the face of it, it is an exciting promotion, where the
most boring board game of all time comes to life. But in this real life version
of Monopoly, my game piece wouldn’t be the car or iron, it would be ‘the fool’.
I devised a plan which I felt was foolproof. I’d eat
McDonalds twice a day, having a large cheeseburger meal each time. A large
cheeseburger meal is the cheapest on the McDonalds menu and it gives you the
maximum amount of games stickers, whilst ensuring I wasn’t overindulging too
much.
I then established some early rules. I used the McDonalds
restaurant locator to find that there were 19 McDonalds restaurants within
19.2km of Newcastle ,
where I live. Talk about overkill. I’d have to eat at each one before
returning.
Scarily it didn’t take too long to get horribly addicted to
the game. What started out initially as a joke quickly became serious business.
I soon found myself ripping off the stickers before I even
had a chance to take a bite of my food.
Obviously McDonalds use this campaign to boost sales and
leverage advertising, whilst minimising the chances of winning. It’s smart, but
is it ethical?
Using promotions to encourage unhealthy eating and giving
customers greater benefits for consuming bigger portions, certainly is a bit of
a grey area on the moral compass.
It’s very easy to get hooked. In the end I didn’t care about
the food, it was simply what was required to fuel my chances of winning.
I saw myself getting addicted early on. I’d been storing my
tickets in a compartment in my glove box and when taking them out one day, I
noticed one was missing.
Queue panic and obscenities, I was soon ripping the car
apart in search.
My neighbour saw me in my distress and asked if they could
help.
Thank god I didn’t have to explain what I was looking for,
as I waived his assistance away.
Some minutes later, I realised that it had fallen down the
back of the compartment and I was soon reunited with it, halleluiah!
McDonald’s promoted your chances of winning instantly as “1
in 5”, but I noticed early on that I was winning much more frequently, which is
clearly their tactic.
Firstly it ensures you go back into a McDonalds to claim
your prize. Secondly it ensures you keep playing the game, because ‘how lucky
are you!’ and thirdly, it means that out of the say 20 stickers you’ve been
given, only 14 of them are actual game properties which you can put towards prizes
on the game board.
Enhanced Media Metrics Australia conducted a survey recently
and found that the average Australian dines out on Take Away food ‘four times a
month’.
In this experience, I dined out 62 times during the month,
so only 58 times above average.
This same survey found that McDonalds, not surprisingly, is
our most popular choice of restaurant.
Now, my recent efforts certainly haven’t helped change
either stat, but promotions like the McDonalds Monopoly aren’t going to change
things quickly either.
Most visits for me are done via the drive-thru and every
time it is covered in advertising material for the Monopoly campaign.
It’s all over the menu board, speaker box, payment and
collection windows, as well as the bag containing your food and of course the
product itself.
There is simply no escaping it.
Obviously we’re big enough and wise enough to make our own
choices on what we eat and where we get it, but the Monopoly game plays on our
desires to ensure there’s a high chance we’ll pull up to the aluminous ‘M’.
Whilst my run may have been unsuccessful in terms of prizes,
I did get to experience some funny moments.
One day I walked into the McDonalds and ordered a
Cheeseburger meal only to be told I couldn’t order one because they were still
serving breakfast.
So, I looked at my phone, only to see it reading 10:27am.
Now, for the uninitiated, McDonalds serve breakfast until
10:30am, before lunch items become available.
I informed the young girl at the register that it was
10:27am, thinking she hadn’t realised how close we were to the changeover, but
no, she did know what time it was and reminded me that I was a few minutes
early.
So, I walked out to my car.
By the time I started it up, clicked in my seatbelt and put
the car in gear, it was 10:30am.
So I drove through the drive-thru and ordered my meal.
I was driving out with meal in hand, less than two minutes
later.
Therefore when I was in at the counter, two minutes earlier,
the food that I ended up receiving was either being made or had already been
made.
It didn’t make a great deal of sense, but it made for a
funny story nonetheless.
In conclusion, throughout the McDonalds Monopoly challenge I
ate enough McDonalds to get 105 game stickers. I finished one sticker off every
single major prize. 12 of the stickers were ‘Instant Win’ McDonald’s food
prizes and 9 stickers were “Instant Win” entertainment prizes. The remaining 84
stickers broke down like this –
Old Ken Road
– 0
Regent St – 0
The Angel Islington – 5
Vine St – 5
Fleet St – 0
Piccadilly – 0
My 105 tickets didn’t win me anything in the game and I
still came up empty handed after submitting the 105 entries I earned into the
second chance draw.
I approached McDonalds for comment on this story and after
exchanging a number of calls, I’m still waiting. They also said they’d provide
me names of some of the winners, but again, that was never delivered.
My own social media searching found the occasional winner,
but it certainly wasn’t the giant prize haul it was made out to be.
All I walked away with was some added weight, dented pride
and my journalistic credibility hanging in the balance, and when it was all
said and done, I learnt the biggest lesson of them all.
Just like the real Monopoly, the banker always wins.
ADAM SANTAROSSA
