On the side of the road outside a remote French village, drivers are getting a very big reminder about the convenience of McDonald’s compared to its biggest rival. Next to a reasonably-sized sign informing them that one of more than 1,000 McDonald’s drive-thru locations (“McDrive” in France) is only a few kilometres away, agency TBWA\Paris has erected a comically large billboard with directions to the nearest of a paltry 20 Burger King drive-thrus. The scene has also been immortalized in this print ad:

The jab is a tiny bit unfair on McDonald’s part, since Burger King only re-entered the French market in 2012 after closing all its locations in 1997, with 40 locations currently operating in total, and the agency seems to have cherry-picked a location that’s as far as possible from a Burger King. But on the other hand, Burger King was kind of asking for it, as previous campaigns in France by agency Buzzman have played off the relatively few locations by encouraging people to mock those who didn’t live in a town with a Burger King on social media, or encouraging them to move to a town that does. And we suppose the point about convenience is still accurate (and you can see the sign being erected and get a full idea of its size and/or the lengths McDonald’s was willing to go to in order to tease Burger King).

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Credits:

Brand: McDonald’s France
Agency: TBWA\Paris
SVP Chief Marketing Officer: Xavier Royaux
Trade Marketing Director: José Jacinto
Trade Marketing Manager:Bérangère Dubuc
Executive Creative Directors: Benjamin Marchal, Faustin Claverie
Art director: Philippe Taroux
Copywriter: Benoît Leroux
General Manager : Luc Bourgery
Account Director: Matthéo Pressmar
Account Executive:Gaël D’Oliveira
Production: Else, Maxime Boiron, Jennifer Bauche
Production designer: Eddy Penot
Film director: Olivier Corre
Photographer: Yoann Stoeckel