Another cracking good effort from McDonald's
ADVERTISING | New billboard another idea that goes over easy
Dare we say it? McDonald's is on a roll with its marketing initiatives. The fast-food behemoth discovered a while ago that it could attract a lot of buzz via innovative, award-winning outdoor efforts from its roster ad agency Leo Burnett/Chicago.
Remember the clever fresh salads display with real lettuce that sprouted next to Wrigley Field last year? That was preceded by an eye-catching billboard made to resemble an inverted McDonald's shake, where the pole holding up the execution became the straw.
(Jean Lachat/Sun-Times)
This summer, McDonald's apparently is looking to garner more attention -- and awards perhaps? -- via two new executions from Burnett in Chicago and New York. The local execution in the form of an egg has just been unveiled adjacent to the McDonald's restaurant at Clark and Addison in the shadow of Wrigley Field.
This ain't no ordinary egg. It happens to be 21 feet tall. It's also been ingeniously designed to crack open to promote McDonald's fresh eggs for breakfast. The billboard includes a timer that starts the cracking-open process around 6 a.m. each day. The egg closes up by around 10:30 a.m. The egg-travangza in Wrigleyville also will do its thing for each Chicago Cubs home game through at least mid-August.
The egg execution follows close on the heels of the debut of another giant McDonald's outdoor execution in New York's Times Square. That features a giant coffee cup with 1,600 gallons of coffee-colored water flowing continuously into it from a spigot above the cup. A Burnett spokeswoman said both billboards were put up to promote McDonald's food quality -- something the restaurant chain has been zealous about touting amid allegations fast food contributes to the obesity epidemic in America. But these two billboards also are fine examples of how to elevate the art and science of outdoor advertising.