Toy News

Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition is the largest Hasbro games launch ever and is the culmination of a worldwide online vote to decide which cities should feature in the final version of the game.
 
It has been estimated that over 250 million copies of Monopoly have been sold since its origination in 1935.  Some 70 years later in 2005, Monopoly was given a modern refresh, including updated property and prices to truly reflect the landscape of London in the 21st century.
 
In 2008, Hasbro opened the game out to fans around the globe, giving them the opportunity to decide which were the world’s 22 greatest cities and should feature on the first ever global board version of the game.
 
The website for voting launched in January and after 38 days of voting had seen 6.5m votes, 5.8m unique visitors and a 19 per cent conversion rate. Traffic to the www.monopoly.com site increased by a whopping 893 per cent, marking it as the world’s  third fastest growing website to date.

In the UK and Ireland the stats were also impressive with 207, 500 votes and  185,000 unique visitors.

The ever popular board games PR machine kicked into action at the launch of the vote and received 41 national TV pieces around the globe including Good Morning America, ABC News, BBC Wales and BBC Scotland. In addition there were 295 national radio and press pieces

As far as the product itself goes, some two million units of the same game will be produced globally – everyone around the  world will be playing on the same board that was voted for through the website.

The game will be produced in 37 languages and in over 50 markets at launch

The game will feature a random bag set of six playing pieces movers (from 24)  one from each continent. Adding to the international flavour, houses and hotels pieces in the game will be based on different architecture from each continent.

The Chance and Community Chest cards will include additional randomised world facts. And the game also comes with the  electronic banking unit included with deal making button.

Marketing support for the UK and Ireland includes a heavyweight TV campaign with over 400 TVR’s starting August 27th and continuing throughout until the start of December.
 
The online campaign will run for four weeks at launch followed by three weeks over the October half term/November achieving over 3.5 million impressions.  The campaign will feature on ‘mum’ targeted sites such as I Village
 
Additional activity includes a world record attempt for the largest simultaneous game of Monopoly. Hasbro is teaming up with EA Entertainment to play Monopoly World on Board Game, Mobile, Online and Console. The heart of this activity will be at Covent Garden. However, an additional 130 sites have been listed to take part throughout the UK and Ireland as well.
 
Outdoor advertising will be visible on over 250 billboards and poster sites at key High Street locations throughout November.
 
For retailers over 1,250 FSDU’s will be sited in key retailers throughout the UK and Ireland for the Launch on August 27th. Full POS kits including headers, wobblers, floor graphics and blade arms will provide the World Edition with stand out in-store.