'McMillion$' Is The Best Thing To Happen To McDonald's Since, Well, Monopoly
If you're part of the population who doesn't have access to HBO (and after the Game of Thrones ending, we understand), you might be missing out on a new white-collar crime show called McMillion$. As of this writing, we're only three episodes in (out of the six planned), but we've got a suggestion for McDonald's -- after this show is over, bring back Monopoly. Here's why.
First of all, Americans eat up 90s nostalgia like it's a bag of french fries. If they ran a new Happy Meal series with Furbies inside, a bunch of people in their 30s would be running each over in their white 2012 Ford Explorers trying to get ones for them and their kids. The kids who grew up on McDonald's PlayPlaces and Happy Meals and saw their parents get all excited about Monopoly will stuff their kids and their parents into their light blue 2011 Subaru Outbacks for a trip down memory lane. People who haven't seen McMillion$ will do this just by noticing that Monopoly is up again.
Second, this is Mickey D's chance to look like, well, the good guy for once. They're a bajillion dollar corporation that only ever seems to make the news when something bad is happening. Their name is attached to poster child for frivolous lawsuits (even though it wasn't frivolous at all). They get dragged for poor treatment of both food and workers. And what's absolutely insane watching McMillion$ is that they look like geniuses. Better yet, they look like they're on the side of the people. While they definitely look like they were trying to play "gotcha!" with people like Gloria Brown (a single mother from Jacksonville) during their investigations into the fraud, this series is almost playing out like an apology from McDonald's to the people who were really hurt in the process.
Finally, the coolest bit is that they could make this one legit. All it would take is a little transparency in advertising, and it'd go beyond viral. While McMillion$ goes very far out of its way to show how insane it was that a fraud like this could have happened to begin with, all the way down to showing us how the winning tickets were distributed, it didn't matter in the end because McDonald's was kind of out of the loop. With a new relaunch of Monopoly, McDonald's gets a chance to be like, "here's how we're keeping this thing legit, nothing to worry about, every winner will be legit" and shape the whole narrative.
Put it all together, and what do you get? A big influx of business, at a time when other franchises are out fighting chicken sandwich wars and worrying about other stupid stuff. This HBO series will be over right around the time the Shamrock Shake goes back into hibernation, and McDonald's should have another promotion ready to go. Money money everywhere, easy.
Okay, and finally-finally, there's no greater American family pastime than fighting over Monopoly, may as well win some prizes out of it.
