McDonald?s is continuing to throw its weight behind Apple?s iAd with a new interactive mobile campaign that drives foot traffic as part of a promotion for the Monopoly game.

The fast food giant is using mobile advertising to increase brand awareness because its popular Monopoly promotion is kicking off earlier this year than it has in the past. The agency behind the campaign is DDB Chicago.

?The whole point of Monopoly is to drive overall awareness,? said Dirk Rients, senior vice president and director of mobile at DDB Chicago, Chicago. ?One of the objectives was to drive to http://www.playatmcd.com that allows consumers to learn more about Monopoly this year.

?As far as engagement rates, we see higher engagement rates with iAds," he said. "It?s an important partner for Apple, and McDonald?s outperforms others.?

Mobile engagement
The McDonald's iAd campaign launched last week and encourages consumers to earn 3,000 points by playing a mobile game that uses a mobile device?s built-in sensors.

Consumers are prompted to tilt their phone to guide a branded plane through an obstacle course for a chance to win a new Fiat car.

The game ties in some of McDonald?s more popular menu items, such as a Big Mac, fries or a McCafé blueberry pomegranate smoothie. Each of the menu items corresponds to an amount of points.

While consumers try to hit as many menu items as possible, they also have to dodge items such as trees that deduct points from a player?s score.

As the plane flies through the air, other messages pop up to remind users about the Monopoly promotion.

For example, a blimp passes by with a banner that reads, ?1 in 4 wins.?

Once consumers finish the obstacle course, the plane flies over McDonald?s famous golden arches and lands in a Fiat car.

Then a call-to-action prompts users to visit http://www.playatmcd.com with a code that they can use to play Monopoly for free. Consumers can earn 100 bonus points for sharing the code with friends and family via Twitter, email or SMS.

The http://www.playatmcd.com microsite is optimized for mobile and lets users create an account that they can use throughout the cycle of the campaign to keep racking up points.

There is also a store locator feature that lets users find a nearby restaurant.

McDonald's on the mobile map

Mobile advertising reign
McDonald?s has continually tested various types of mobile advertising in the past few years to drive in-store traffic.

Most recently, McDonald?s worked with Kiip on a rewards-based campaign that doled out free song downloads from Amazon?s App Store (see story).

IAds are also a staple of the brand?s mobile advertising strategy.

Late last year, McDonald?s rolled out its sixth iAd campaign to promote its CBO sandwiches (see story).

?This whole thing was to give consumers a code and get them excited about Monopoly,? Mr. Rients said.

?The three portions are awareness, engagement and getting [consumers] to play the game again,? he said.

?It always includes a store locator. The whole goal is to get consumers into the store.?

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York