McDonald's Media Network puts ads on drive-thru screens

McDonald's is launching an advertising business that will place third-party ads on menu boards, drive-thru screens and self-order kiosks across its US restaurants, the company said this week.

The McDonald's Media Network will use the chain's app and in-store digital touchpoints to sell advertising space to outside brands, following an investor day presentation on 23 September in which the company set a target of $1 billion in advertising revenue over time.

A pilot has already run since August across 450 company-owned US restaurants, displaying third-party ads on digital drive-thru order boards. The programme has not yet been extended to the franchisees who operate most of the chain's roughly 14,000 US locations.

Sell the fries, then sell the screen the fries sat on.

McDonald's said the network will draw on customer data gathered through its app and loyalty programme to help brands target diners at the point of ordering, rather than through traditional media placements.

Restaurants as retail media

The move follows a wider retail trend in which companies including Walmart and Amazon have built advertising units around the shopper data they already collect, turning checkout screens and apps into paid media space.

Commerce media spending in the US is projected to top $100 billion by 2028, and fast-food chains are increasingly seen as a natural extension of that market given the volume of daily visits to their digital ordering points.

Some franchisees have previously experimented with similar ideas on a smaller scale, including Free Bean, an ad-funded coffee shop that opened in Manhattan on the promise of free drinks paid for by advertisers.

Screens, not menus, are the product

McDonald's has not said when the advertising programme might roll out to franchised restaurants, which would require separate agreements given how digital menu boards and kiosks are typically financed at the local level.

The company reports third-quarter results next month, when analysts are expected to ask how much of the promised $1 billion is expected to materialise before the media network reaches the bulk of its US restaurant fleet.