The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2018
McDonald's turns cropped Golden Arches into arrows — Cannes Outdoor Grand Prix 2018
Cossette slices the M logo into directional arrows — 'on your left', 'next exit', 'just missed us' — winning Cannes Outdoor Grand Prix 2018.
McDonald's Canada · Cossette
What it had to solve
McDonald's Canada needed to funnel drivers to its restaurants, but the directional signs lining Canadian roads were generic and easily ignored — while the most recognizable part of the brand, the golden arches, sat unused on those signs.
How it works
McDonald's Canada had a familiar problem: drivers needed to be guided to the nearest restaurant, but the directional billboards lining Canadian roads were generic, cluttered and easily ignored. Cossette noticed something the brand itself had overlooked — signs pointing people to McDonald's existed everywhere, yet the most recognizable logo in the world appeared on those signs only as a passive marker.
The creative leap was to make the logo do the directing. Cossette deconstructed the 'M' into curved arrow fragments, each cropped from the arches and paired with a single line — 'on your left', 'on your right', 'next exit', 'just missed us'. Four executions (three static boards and one digital) went up in high-traffic areas across downtown Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area, where the fragments read instantly as both brand and instruction.
Because the system uses almost no words, it works in any language and any market: a global brand asset was turned into a functional, modular wayfinding design system. The campaign won the Outdoor Grand Prix at the 2018 Cannes Lions festival and two One Club Gold Pencils for design, and Cossette described the work as having gone viral globally.
Why it lands
- It converts the brand's most protected asset into the message itself, so recognition does the persuading with almost no copy.
- Cropping the logo is a stronger idea than inventing new signage: it proves the arches carry meaning even in fragments, in any language.
- The executions form a modular grammar (left, right, exit, missed), so one idea scales across cities and markets instead of being a one-off poster.
- The idea cost little beyond production — the creative reframing, not the budget, did the work.
What it did
Won the Outdoor Grand Prix at Cannes 2018 and two One Club Gold Pencils for design; Cossette described the work as going viral globally, and the wordless, modular system became a scalable wayfinding template.
What you can take
Reframe the asset you already own: the arches carried all the brand meaning, so the execution could be almost empty — crop the logo, point it, and let recognition do the persuasion.
Since then
Follow the Arches became one of the defining outdoor campaigns of 2018: the Cannes Outdoor Grand Prix was followed by two One Club Gold Pencils for design, and the work was widely reposted as proof that a logo can double as wayfinding. The system was built to be copied — Cossette CCO Peter Ignazi said the approach 'not only translates on a national, but a global scale' — and it remains a standard reference point for minimal, language-free outdoor advertising.
Sources
- Cossette and McDonald's Follow the Arches All the Way to a Cannes Grand Prix
- McDonald's Ads Win Cannes Outdoor Grand Prix by Turning Golden Arches Into Arrows
- Cossette "Follow the Arches"
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