Do you want bigger fries with that?

As you probably know, especially if you’re reading the Day-By-Day blog, I’m currently in tech for Godspell.  Tech means two things:  late nights and junk food.

Last night, at just after 10 PM, I regressed to the ol’ standby:  McDonald’s.  Yep, those no-sauce-but-salted Chicken McNuggets in the picture below are mine.

But I didn’t take that pic to freak you out about my sodium and saturated fat intake.  I took that photo to show you what was writ large on the fry packaging.

See, it’s that time of year – it’s McDonald’s Monopoly time.

This whopper-sized promotion has been in use by the fast food giant since 1987 (!) and shows no sign of going directly to promotional jail without passing go.  This is the first year, however, that I noticed a little tweak to the campaign.

On the box of medium fries, it says, “Want game pieces?  Get large fries!”

Mickey D’s knows that people love their Monopoly.  And they decided to hold back those coveted game pieces for the super-sizers in their world in an attempt to convert customers to some bigger sizes and bigger bucks in the future.

And I’d bet that it works.

It’s a fine marketing line, and it can be very effective to remind people what they are missing, especially when it’s only a few cents more.

I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a way to say to someone sitting in the balcony who got their tickets at TKTS, “Want a better view?  Buy tickets in advance on Telecharge.com.”  Or what about messaging “Want more legroom?” to a full price buyer about upgrading to aisle seats.  (Airlines do this often.)  Or even a group sales call-to-action like, “Want to save money on your tickets?  Bring friends to the theater!”

I didn’t even know Monopoly was going on until I looked at my fries.

And our customers may not even know about some of our other options unless we remind them.

And since it’s always easier to get a current customer to buy a little more than to get a new customer to buy in the first place, “reminder marketing” could be as profitable as a hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place.

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