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Screen Magazine - Index

Screen Magazine - Screen Magazine: Vol. 29, Issue 17 - Index

Believing In Magic:
Leo Burnett Has Many Reasons To “Smile” About Longtime McDonald’s Client
Compiled by Amy Wilschke
Leo Burnett is one of the most well-known and respected
advertising agencies worldwide, so it only makes sense
that the company would handle such high-profile accounts
as McDonald’s – an account that Leo Burnett (USA) has
been creating advertising and branding campaigns for
since 1981. SCREEN caught up with chief creative officer
(and 2008 Star Awards Lifetime Achievement winner)
John Condon for some of his thoughts on this longtime
collaboration. Here is what he has to say:
I’ve worked on and around the McDonald’s brand for
about 20 years now, and one thing that I can say is that
McDonald’s has always demanded that we give our best.
And while that isn’t exactly easy day in and day out, it’s
the greatest opportunity there is. What more could you
possibly ask than for someone to want you to be at your
absolute best?
At Leo Burnett, it is our duty to create ideas so powerful
that they truly move people. We aim to arrive at the
brand’s purpose and look at what we can help that
brand mean to people – only then do we look at what the
creative solution might be.
The results of this partnership and that spirit go back even
further than Michael Jordan and Larry Bird dueling over a
Big Mac. And that commitment is what propels our best
thinking today. It’s the kind of partnership and ambition
that makes it unacceptable to produce a poster that
simply lists the breakfast menu and the hours at which
it is available. It’s the kind of relationship that makes an
actual working sundial that’s capable of telling the story
possible.
The folks at Leo Burnett have provided SCREEN with some
statistical information about a couple of unique recent
campaigns that the agency did for McDonald’s.
THE WRIGLEYVILLE “EGG” – SUMMER 2008:
It’s what enables us to tell a compelling food quality story
by creating a living billboard that spells out the words
“Fresh Salads” in the exact varieties of lettuce that go into
McDonald’s salads; or demonstrating our commitment to
the fresh eggs by cracking open a giant, 21-foot tall egg
every morning in Wrigleyville.
We’ve been able to be part of re-inventing and redefining
Happy Meal advertising. Together we’ve brought
Quincy dancing, or should I say “cha-cha-sliding,” into
the hearts of millions. We’ve turned the friendly battle for
the last Chicken McNugget into something much larger.
And in both cases, we’ve brought the message to stages
where a Happy Meal wouldn’t normally be expected to
play, like the Oscars and the Olympics.
In everything we do, the joint ambition is to surprise and
delight consumers. At times, that can take us into lesstraditional
media and into partnerships that simply hadn’t
existed before, like our current LineRider program (http://
linerider.com/).
Not only does everyone at McDonald’s give us incredible
opportunities, they provide us with the partnership, trust
and support necessary to create things that have never
been done before.
So, as I look to the future, I’m not
really sure exactly what it looks like.
But based on our mutual ambition,
we hope to continue creating
innovative ideas that truly move
people.
Chicagoans passing through Wrigleyville now start their
days with the cracking of a 21-foot egg to remind them
that McDonald’s cracks real eggs daily in its nearly 14,000
U.S. restaurants. Following the success of “Fresh Salads” and
the lauded “Sundial”effort, Leo Burnett has teamed up with
McDonald’s to create “Egg,” an innovative outdoor effort
to promote McDonald’s food quality as part of its largest
outdoor advertising campaign. The billboard campaign
began in mid-June with the first billboard titled “Coffee,” a
48-foot flowing cup and spigot of Premium Roast Coffee in
Times Square in New York.
Both an engineering feat and a first-of-its-kind, “Egg” is
a fully functional billboard fashioned out of aluminum
armature in the form of a ribbed structure, covered in
screen and expandable foam, and then hand-sculpted
into an egg shape. The egg shell was sanded, coated in
plastic and painted with an eggshell finish. The interior of
the egg is a custom-fabricated round unit that combines
sculpted foam, hand painting and vinyl graphics into a
sculptural, glossy yellow yolk with a dimensional headline.
The construction of the egg shell and interior took eightand-a-half
weeks with an installation period of six days.