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16 Memorable Food Ad Ideas from Famous Food Brands

We’ve compiled some of the best food ad designs to help you create an effective marketing campaign, whether through print materials or social media..

Marketing design
March 5, 2021
5
min

Table of Contents

Since food is first tasted through the eyes, you need to learn good food advertising and create unique ads that will make tummies excited. And how to learn better, if not from the best players in the industry?

Print ads are still around, and especially effective when you’re driving around town and a juicy meal on a billboard makes you even hungrier. How many times have you seen an ad and felt like eating something, even though you weren’t hungry?

That is exactly what a good and well-thought-out ad can do: create a sense of urgency and awaken the hunger for something tasty. Food promotion is quite straightforward and simple since hunger is one of the strongest and most elementary feelings that prompt people to make a purchase.

To help you create an effective marketing campaign, whether through print materials or social media, we compiled some of the best food ad designs. Disclaimer: you’ll see a lot of McDonald’s and Burger King ads! And another, obvious one: you’ll probably be hungry after reading this.

1. Pizza Hut: bringing the taste (and look) of Italy

Pizza is undoubtedly the most popular Italian export and the first thing you think about when thinking of Italy. However, another symbol of this romantic European country is the leaning tower of Pisa, which Pizza Hut used and gave a personal twist. If you can’t get to Pisa, you can see the leaning tower of Pizza. Looks good enough to me!

2. Burger King: Sticking to tradition

The key difference between Burger King and many other fast food chains (ehm, McDonald’s), is that their burger patties are flame-cooked. They take pride in their method of cooking their most popular menu item, so they produced a whole line of quirky print ads that show that if something isn’t broken, you shouldn’t try to fix it.

3. McDonald’s: Food for the night owls

If your fast food joint delivers during the night, it’s an important value to highlight. Remember clubbing and eating at night? Or maybe cramming material before an exam, and noticing you haven’t eaten all day?

This McDonald’s print ad makes sure the night owls know they can depend on it. It is visually stunning and smartly designed.

4. Kapiti: When ice cream-making turns into art

An ice cream chain from New Zealand took a risky approach to print advertising, in order to relay the statement that they’re making designer ice cream. It’s no usual ice cream, so it deserves more than a usual ad.

5. Maggi: Feels like home

Who isn’t reminded of home and coziness by a bowl of warm soup? Maggi knows what soups mean to people, so they created this ad to show that even in the worst of times, the feeling of home can be achieved with a comforting soup.

6. Dairy Farmers of Canada: You are what you eat

I strongly believe that the cheese of choice says a lot about a person. Wanna stick with a classic American? Or is your palate ready for some moldy, smelly goodness?

As a fan of all sorts of cheeses from all over the world, this ad about blue cheese speaks to me. I like to think that I am, truly, strong, bold and a touch nutty.

7. Pampaverde: A big bite

This ad for a packed and ready to grill barbecue created for the Chilean brand Pampaverde simply tries to show how big their burgers are. We get the idea right away.

8. Eini & Co Cupcakes: Wait, it’s not real?

A cupcake so well decorated, that a bee mistakes the flower on top of it for a real one. It’s not alluding to the taste, rather the skill of the baker, but a well-decorated cupcake is half the joy, isn’t it?

9. McDonald’s: Count to three, and they’re gone!

The evolution of a potato: you peel it, you dice it, you fry it, and then you can’t stop yourself. This McDonald’s ad simply shows that their fries are seriously tasty.

10. KFC: Finger lickin' goodness

KFC’s slogan is “Finger lickin’ good”, and the brand decided to support it with some cool print ads. In the one below, you can see a greasy thumb and palm print in the shape of a chicken drumstick. They did the same with hot wings and mini fillet burgers.

11. Burger King: The glove is thrown

One of the most epic ad wars in history is the one between McDonald’s and Burger King. The two brands are known to directly challenge and refer to one another in advertisements, and one of the focal points of Burger King is the size of their Whopper. In this brilliant ad, they show how much bigger than a Big Mac it is, by trying to fit it in a Big Mac box.

12. McDonald’s: For experts only

This print ad perfectly matches the catchphrase. By stacking books and encyclopedias about each of the contents of the new M sandwich, McDonald’s mimicked the menu item itself.

13. KFC: Oh FCK!

When the UK branch of KFC ran out of chicken, they found a uniquely comical way to apologize to anyone that tried to have some tasty nugs. They simply scrambled the letters in their brand name to… well, curse in a very relatable way.

14. McDonald’s: One for the vegetarians

Burgers are made out of beef, but not everyone likes beef or eating animals at all. To promote their veggie burger, the German McDonald’s assembled some veggies in the shape of a cow.

15. Burger King: Could it get scarier?

Once again, Burger King showed it's also the king of trolling. For Halloween, they were dressed as McDonald’s. Utterly scary!

16. Burger King: Brave and honest

What happens to food that doesn’t have any artificial preservatives? It gets moldy. To prove that their hamburgers are 100% fresh and natural, they simply published a timelapse and print ads of a rather disgusting, but an effective image: a moldy Whopper. Talk about picking on McDonald’s, whose Big Mac is still going strong in an Icelandic museum, mold-free.

oh.my
Idealogic Brand Lab

Journalist turned content writer. Based in North Macedonia, aiming to be a digital nomad. Always loved to write, and found my perfect job writing about graphic design, art and creativity. A self-proclaimed film connoisseur, cook and nerd in disguise.

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