It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, the chances are the person next to you will recognise a Big Mac from its picture.

Even if it’s as stylised as this:

TBWA\Paris has built an entire campaign around Macca’s pictograms, which they’ve blended with everyday emoji, such as like and heart, and stuck up all over Paris.

Each pictogram is made of tiny emoji, like a pointillist image. The Big Mac is made up of hundreds of little thumbs-up signs; the fries are made from smiley faces; the sundae from musical notes; and the Happy Meal from heart symbols.

Product plus the emotion, desire, put forward as one idea in a striking manner in places lots of people look at – isn’t that the fundamental rule of advertising ?

The 2015 campaign builds on last year’s pictogram idea that put McDonald’s at the heart of pop culture in France. And the pictogram campaign followed from the 2013 campaign, in which images of six McDonald’s products were chosen to represent the brand the Big Mac, the Cheeseburger, the Fries, the Sundae, the Chicken Nuggets and the Filet-o-Fish. They were photographed in extreme close-up, without a single logo or word. That campaign was ranked the 2nd favourite French campaign by Ipsos, with a record rating of 90%.

This year, TBWA\Paris has also added take home McDonald’s icons to its menu.

McDonald’s has created a capsule collection that is being sold exclusively at famous Paris fashion and lifestyle store, Colette. There are six Macca’s products in the range: t-shirts, tote bags, scarves, iPhone cases, notebooks, and postcards.

The poster campaign is running from May 5 to 20. There are 28,300 pictograms in the streets, 3,360 in 316 train stations, and an event poster of 148 billboards in 14 train stations. The limited collection McDonald’s-Colette is available all May at Colette.

Creative credits:

Agency: TBWA\Paris

Creative director: Jean-François Goize

Art director: Philippe Taroux

Copywriter: Benoit Leroux