McDonald’s has installed mini mobile billboards in the Dutch cities of Utrecht and Leiden, each about 650 feet from a restaurant location. The plain red and yellow billboards don’t use a single word or image; instead they pump out the aroma of warm french fries to passersby. “Smell has been proven to be more effective at sparking clear and emotional memories than images,” says McDonald’s Netherlands CMO Stijn Mentrop-Huliselan. “With the inclusion of this next sense in our advertising, we found a new way to remind people of Good Times at McDonald’s.”
This led the brand agency TBWA\Neboko to partner with Raúl&Rigel, a production company that specializes in unusual billboards, to make a scented billboard for the new McDonalds campaign. Each billboard has a side compartment for holding fries and a ventilation system build to intensify and diffuse the scent. “We are always looking or ways to give iconic brand assets their own place in culture,” Darre van Dijk, CCO of TBWA\Neboko says. “The smell of McDonald’s french fries is one of those iconic features.”
