Chicago Tribune | Business | Section 2 | Friday, March 28, 2014

The 2014 ADDYs Show is about two months away. Which means the 2015 ADDYs is about 14 months away. Yet I’m going to stick my neck out and predict this bus shelter (which I walk past twice a day) will win an ADDY, or as the AAF renamed it, an “American Advertising Award.”

In today’s paper, Trib reporter Jessica Wohl writes: “The bus shelter is part of a campaign focused on family time… (it) was chosen for its high-traffic location, not its proximity to the rival chain, said Brian Shembeda, a SVP at Leo Burnett.”

Not sure I believe Mr. Shembeda. (Especially since this bus shelter is spitting distance from his office.) But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.

The supersized Happy Meal box is a simple idea executed flawlessly. Bravo!

FOOTNOTE: I don’t have a list of creatives who did this out-of-home (OOH) execution. But I know one name that won’t be on the list but should be: JACK GOLDENBERG. Long before YouTube popularized viral marketing, he launched the Happy Meal with word-of-mouth communication (WOM).