There’s not a golden arch in sight, but you’ll know this is a McDonald’s billboard when you smell it.
McDonald’s 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 to advertise McDonald’s offerings—and they don’t need to.
Instead, the billboards pump out the aroma of warm french fries to passersby, who seem to instinctively know the scent of a McDonald’s french fry compared to any other form of fried potato. “Smell has been proven to be more effective at sparking clear and emotional memories than images,” says McDonald’s Netherlands CMO Stijn Mentrop-Huliselan.