For three days, McDonald’s menu forecast Britain’s April weather

A Big Mac became the sun, and an upturned carton of fries stood for rain.

Back in April 2018, McDonald’s used its menu to report Britain’s unpredictable weather. Weather-Reactive Outdoor connected digital billboards to live Met Office data, allowing the creative to change with the temperature and forecast.

Created by Leo Burnett London, the campaign ran across the United Kingdom from 26 to 28 April. It used eight McDonald’s food images in place of familiar weather symbols.

Eight menu items replaced the forecast symbols

The campaign began with the shapes and colours people already associated with McDonald’s products.

An unwrapped burger represented sunshine. A burger partly covered by its wrapper became a cloudy sky. An upturned fries carton created rain, with the individual fries falling like raindrops. A fry dipped in ketchup was also used as a thermometer.

These images could be understood quickly from a road or pavement. The food carried the forecast and the branding at the same time.

The set of eight symbols also gave the campaign enough options to respond to different conditions. Sunshine, cloud, rain and temperature could all be communicated without changing the visual language.

Met Office data decided what appeared

The digital outdoor system used real-time Met Office information to show the current temperature and five-day weather forecasts.

The data did not appear as charts or complicated numbers. It simply selected the correct McDonald’s image for the conditions being reported.

That decision kept the billboards clear. Someone passing the screen could understand the weather symbol first and recognise the McDonald’s product a moment later.

The campaign also gave people useful information. Each display functioned as a small public weather report while keeping the menu at the centre of the communication.

OpenLoop managed and distributed the changing creative across the digital outdoor network. This allowed the screens to update without each placement needing to be changed manually.

April kept all eight symbols busy

Weather-Reactive Outdoor ran for only three days, but late April gave the system plenty of possible conditions to respond to.

Britain’s changing weather was already a common topic of conversation. McDonald’s joined that conversation by showing the forecast instead of writing another headline about it.

The date also mattered to the campaign mechanic. A fixed image would have shown one product repeatedly. Live conditions allowed the creative to move between burgers, fries and other menu items as the forecast changed.

Weather-Reactive Outdoor made each shift in the sky a reason for the billboard to display a different product. The forecast supplied the information, while the familiar food shapes made every update recognisably McDonald’s.

Credits

Weather-Reactive Outdoor (2018). McDonald’s, United Kingdom. Agency Leo Burnett London. Chief Creative Officer Chaka Sobhani. Creative Director Pete Heyes. Creative team Ben Newman and Liane Dowling. Designers Paul Reddington and Kinda Savarino. Illustrator James Andrews. Agency Producer Sarah Ioannou. Production Grand Visual. Campaign management and distribution OpenLoop. Media planning and booking Talon and OMD.