Visit North Carolina turned New York's own colours into a fall-foliage ad

Part of the 'For Real, Visit NC' platform: reframe the manufactured colours New Yorkers see every day as a reason to travel for the real thing in October and November.

Transparent leaf-shaped magnets and stickers placed across New York make the city's own manufactured colours read as North Carolina's real fall foliage

Leaf-shaped transparent magnets and stickers across New York and Chicago, a 60-second spot shot in downtown Manhattan showing the colours behind the posters — brick buildings, taxis, sidewalks, street signs — and passer-by reaction assets on social, following the foliage mountain-to-coast into November.

Assets to be reused for a larger 2024 push from late summer; no results figures reported.

In October 2023 Visit North Carolina and its creative agency of record Luquire launched 'For Real Fall Colors', an out-of-home idea that stamped transparent, leaf-shaped magnets and stickers across New York — placed everywhere the city already showed a pop of colour, from brick buildings to taxi cabs, sidewalks and street signs.

The trick: using the manmade colours of New York to demonstrate the organic colours North Carolina offers every autumn, when millions flock to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains. Chief creative officer Glen Hilzinger said the agency literally reframed the manufactured colours New Yorkers are used to, to inspire them to see the real colours of North Carolina.

A 60-second spot shot in downtown Manhattan accompanies the installations, depicting the fall colours visible behind the posters; video and photo assets of passer-by reactions went live across social. As fall foliage migrated across the state from mountains to coast, Luquire kept supplying scenic trip options into November, with plans to reuse the assets in a larger 2024 push from late summer.

The medium is the message: a transparent leaf turns the city's own yellow taxi into evidence for the real thing.

Competing with New York's ad noise is expensive; annotating the street costs little and earns a second look.

Reaction footage of New Yorkers discovering the leaves extends one placement into shareable social proof.

Tying the colour migration to trip timing gives the campaign a natural reason to run from mountains to coast.

Don't import your scenery to the city — reframe what the city already has and the punchline lands harder.

The campaign ran through the 2023 foliage season into November, with assets planned for reuse in a larger push from late summer 2024. No results figures are reported.