Best Billboard of the Year

It went up near the intersection of Clark and Addison in Chicago, Illinois last Friday, July 7.

Long story short: The billboard features a real working sundial whose gnomon is a 3-D sculpture of McDonald's arches. The billboard and gnomon were precisely aligned so that the shadow falls on a different menu item each hour from 6 a.m. until noon, when the vertical line (above) falls dead-center on what appears to me to be a Big Mac.

If you're in Chicago you might stop by and have an up-close look; if that's not a Big Mac do let me know and I'll correct my surmise.

Here's the full story as reported by Julie Jargon (great name, what?) in yesterday's ChicagoBusiness.com.

McD’s launches next strike in breakfast war – in Wrigleyville

Leo Burnett, engineer help build sundial campaign

McDonald’s Corp. is striking back in the ongoing fast food breakfast war with a new billboard in Wrigleyville.

Designed by ad agency Leo Burnett with the input of an engineer, the billboard features a real sundial whose shadow falls on a different breakfast item each hour until noon, when the shadow of the McDonald’s arches are dead center.

The billboard, which went up near the intersection of Clark and Addison on Friday, is the latest in a campaign aimed at urging Chicagoans to turn to McDonald’s for breakfast.

“McDonald’s invented breakfast in the quick service restaurant industry,” says Rob Jackson, McDonald’s regional marketing director for the greater Chicago region, which includes parts of Wisconsin and Indiana.

Oak Brook-based McDonald’s, which launched the Egg McMuffin in 1973, has been facing more competition lately in its hometown. In May, Starbucks began selling warm breakfast sandwiches in Chicago and Wendy’s, which is testing breakfast items in some markets, may eventually roll out breakfast nationwide.

“As competition heats up, we want to make sure we have the value, variety and convenience customers look for,” Mr. Jackson says. “Breakfast is a very critical part of our business, and our goal in Chicago is to demonstrate our variety at breakfast.”

To turn the sundial concept into reality, Leo Burnett hired Christian Huff, a Chicago-based electrical engineer and technical advisor to Studio One East, a Chicago graphic design business that does work for Leo Burnett.

Mr. Huff says he evaluated several available billboards before settling on the one west of Wrigley Field, where the sun hits at just the right angle to tell time between 6 a.m. and noon.

He then designed an aluminum set of McDonald’s arches measuring four feet by three-and-a-half feet to serve as the “dial” mounted above the billboard. “The underlying concept is simple, but the application is messy,” Mr. Huff says, explaining that he had to tweak the positioning of the arches so it would cast an undistorted shadow on the billboard at noon, when the arches fall on a sandwich, signaling lunchtime.

The billboard will remain in place until August, when the sun starts to wane, but Mr. Huff says he’s helping Leo Burnett evaluate other concepts.

Without providing specifics on what future breakfast billboards – or other breakfast promos — will feature, McDonald’s Mr. Jackson says, “You’ll continue to see those elements. We have a number of different tactics were employing.”

Locally, McDonald’s also has been trying to boost its breakfast business with billboards for its new premium coffee, and with price promotions, such as two biscuit sandwiches for $3. “We’re committed to our breakfast value program, and you’ll continue to see that for the balance of the year,” Mr. Jackson says.

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[via Jay Bo]