McDonald's launched a media network. They watched Walmart and Amazon turn customer data into ad revenue and thought, "We should monetize the guy ordering a Big Mac at 2 AM."
The play is simple. You open the app to redeem your free medium fries. McDonald's shows you an ad for Coca-Cola or Charmin or whatever company wants to reach people who consider drive-thru a food group. They collect the impression data. They bill the advertiser. They call it innovation.
Walmart did this first because they had the infrastructure. Amazon did it because they had the captive audience. McDonald's is doing it because apparently watching two other companies print money from targeted ads made them feel left out of the grift.
The average McDonald's customer opens the app to find coupons, not to engage with brand messaging. But now every McDouble comes with a side of programmatic advertising. You wanted to save forty cents on a McFlurry. They wanted to track your purchase behavior and sell access to your eyeballs.
Retail traders will see this headline and think it's bullish. They'll buy calls on MCD because "diversified revenue streams" sounds like something a smart person would say. They'll ignore that McDonald's makes money selling frozen meat patties to drunk people, not competing with Google's ad network.
The media network will generate a rounding error in revenue. The press release will call it "a significant step in our digital transformation." Analysts will nod approvingly. The stock will move based on interest rates and beef prices like it always does.
But sure, the real catalyst was selling banner ads to people who can't figure out the ice cream machine is broken until they reach the window.
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