Hasbro is addressing a threat to traditional board games from popular video games by updating its iconic Monopoly with a mobile application that links to users? Facebook profiles, intending to entice families that are all-around more tech-savvy than ever before.

To promote the game?s new components, Hasbro has teamed with YouTube sensations the Holderness family to execute a video explaining the use of the app.  Players can use the app to import their Facebook pictures and print them to be used while playing the game. 

?Hasbro is home to some of the most beloved and iconic gaming brands in the world and is constantly extending those brands into new play experiences,? said Danielle Armbrust, director of marketing at Monopoly, Los Angeles. 

A personalized experience?
Users can create a basic account on the app or link the app directly to their Facebook profiles. Players then select photos they want to use from their mobile device or Facebook albums.

Photos are placed onto sticker sheets, which can then be printed and used to personalize users? game boards. 

The Holderness family explains the added fun that comes with their personalized Monopoly checkpoints, such as having photos of ?Mom?s 8th grade perm? or ?Our favorite vacation spot.?

The use of the Holderness family to promote My Monopoly will likely attract fans given their public involvement through their YouTube channel. The family aims to showcase a fun time spent with family, which is a direct goal of Hasbro?s ongoing Family Game Night campaign.

When consumers purchase the board game, there are instructions on the front of the box explaining how to use the app.

Hasbro?s strategies show that technology can empower and enlighten articles of the world that were initially just physical. However, all encompassing mobile games such as Candy Crush may carry more endurance than mobilized board games such as Monopoly.

Over the past couple years, Hasbro has prioritized the mobilization of many of its products.

In 2013, Hasbro had sold one million of its Telepods figures that allows kids to blend the physical and virtual by teleporting real-life figures into mobile applications.

In the summer of 2013, Hasbro launched its first line of Telepods for Rovio Entertainment and Lucasfilm?s Angry Birds Star Wars II, and it geared up for a new line of Telepods for Angry Birds Go!, a new Rovio app. When a child bought a set of Telepods, he could then access a feature within the Rovio app, place the Telepod on the device?s camera and teleport the Telepod into the app for play (see story).

Also in 2013, Oceanhouse Media and Random House released the eighth book application in The Cat in the Hat?s Learning Library series to help parents and teachers educate children.

The book app, There?s a Map on My Lap!: All About Maps, taught kids about maps while at the same time helping them learn to read and offered two different modes for interacting with the book (see story).

While Hasbro has found success in its mobile implementations, social seems to be its next strategy, which could give Monopoly the boost it needs to survive the technology era.

?Our classic games have been and continue to be incredibly popular, but integrating a mobile component as we?ve done with My Monopoly, which allows players to customize the board using photos from social channels or personal devices, brings games to a new level and introduces them to new generations of fans,? Ms. Armbrust said.