Follow the Arches
McDonald's (Canada)2018
Follow the Arches is a 2018 billboard campaign for McDonald's, created by Cossette, Toronto.
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The line
Just missed us.
Why it works
The golden arches, cropped so tightly they turn into road signs. Cossette noticed that the roadside signs pointing drivers to McDonald's restaurants were a jumble of inconsistent formats, and realised the directions were already inside the logo: zoom in on one curve of the M and it bends left, right, straight ahead or round in a U-turn. The resulting billboards used nothing but the brand's red and yellow, a fragment of the logo and a few words of road-sign copy, such as "on your left", "on your right" and "just missed us". It is studied as a lesson in distinctive brand assets, a logo so familiar that it still works when you show almost none of it, and in turning advertising into a genuinely useful service, a wayfinding system designed to be adapted to any market. Cannes jurors called it iconic and gave it the Outdoor Grand Prix in 2018, and it was also recognised by D&AD and the One Show.
Techniques
- Visual metaphor Tight crops of the golden arches bend left, right or into a U-turn, turning a fragment of the familiar logo into road signs for drivers.
- Humour A curve bent into a U-turn above the words just missed us adds a wink to otherwise practical directions.
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