McDonald’s launches media network with $1 billion advertising ambition

MUMBAI: McDonald’s is putting a new item on the menu, and this one comes with an advertising price tag. The fast-food giant has entered the media business with the McDonald’s Media Network, targeting a potential $1 billion advertising business over time.

The initiative was unveiled at McDonald’s September 23 Investor Day in Chicago and is currently being piloted across 450 company-owned restaurants in the US. The test places advertising from third-party brands across digital customer touchpoints, including drive-thru order boards, kiosks, the McDonald’s app and other restaurant-based screens.

For now, the programme covers only company-owned restaurants and has not been extended to the franchise-operated portion of McDonald’s roughly 14,000 US restaurants.

Morgan Flatley, global chief marketing officer and executive vice president of new business ventures at McDonald’s, said the initiative could create another revenue stream from assets already woven into the customer journey.

Flatley said commerce media is one of the fastest-growing areas of advertising and is expected to exceed $100 billion in the US by 2028. McDonald’s, she added, is at the beginning of its ambition to build the Media Network into a $1 billion business across its system over time.

The economics are part of the attraction. Flatley said the network could generate revenue with “little in the way of additional cost”, while limiting operational complexity and avoiding disruption to the customer experience.

McDonald’s move places it alongside retailers that have turned existing consumer ecosystems into advertising businesses, although its starting point is somewhat different.

Amazon generated $68.635 billion in advertising-services sales in 2025, up from $56.214 billion in 2024. Advertising services accounted for about 9.6 per cent of Amazon’s $716.9 billion consolidated sales that year.

Walmart, meanwhile, reported a 43 per cent increase in Walmart Connect’s US sales in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, excluding VIZIO, while its overall global advertising business grew 38 per cent during the quarter.

McDonald’s is approaching the opportunity from the restaurant floor rather than an online retail catalogue. Its proposed media inventory combines digital engagement through its app with screens customers encounter while ordering, waiting for food and using the drive-thru.

Ian Borden, McDonald’s executive vice president and global chief financial officer, pointed to the scale of that existing infrastructure. The company has roughly 14,000 US locations and, according to Borden, reaches about 85 per cent of the US population at least once a year.

Globally, McDonald’s says it serves more than 70 million customers daily, although the Media Network is currently a US pilot rather than a worldwide rollout.

The media push follows several years of investment in McDonald’s digital infrastructure. Dario Baroni, president of McDonald’s international developmental licensed markets, said the company had rebuilt its digital foundation to bring ordering, marketing, loyalty and data onto a unified global backbone.

That infrastructure gives McDonald’s an existing connection between customer engagement and transactions, allowing advertising to be layered onto touchpoints that customers already use.

The company is also reshaping its wider marketing approach. Flatley said McDonald’s is roughly doubling investment in longer-running programmes focused on brand, taste, quality and value, while reducing the number of short-term promotional campaigns.

That makes the Media Network part of a broader attempt to get more value from McDonald’s physical footprint, digital channels and consumer relationships.

The company has not provided a timeline for reaching the $1 billion advertising ambition. For now, the 450-restaurant pilot will provide the first indication of how the model performs before any potential expansion across the franchise network.

The announcement forms part of McDonald’s broader ‘NEXT’ strategy unveiled at Investor Day, which also covers restaurant upgrades, food quality, technology and efficiency. The company expects approximately $3 billion in annual baseline capital expenditure from 2027 through 2030, alongside $1.5 billion to $2 billion of cumulative capital-partnering support.

For the advertising industry, McDonald’s entry adds another consumer-facing ecosystem to the expanding commerce-media landscape. For the burger giant, it is a new way of turning the screens, apps and customer journeys it already owns into another source of revenue.