McDonald’s Is Selling Burgers. Now It Wants to Sell Your Attention.

At its investor day on Sept. 23, the company laid out plans for McDonald’s Media Network, which will show ads from other brands across its app, kiosks, menu boards, and restaurants. The pilot started in August at 450 U.S. company-owned restaurants. 

Global CMO Morgan Flatley pointed to “more than 70 million daily customers globally” and “an unmatched footprint from our app to kiosks, menu boards, and restaurants.” The goal is big.  

“We are at the beginning of our aspiration to build McDonald’s Media Network into a billion-dollar business across the McDonald’s system over time,” she shared. 

Refreshed leadership advice from CEO Stephanie Mehta

That makes McDonald’s a media company. And every media company learns the same lesson eventually. Attention is earned, not given. It’s the idea at the center of my book, The Newsroom Effect. It applies to a fast-food giant as much as a founder with a newsletter. 

Every brand with an audience is a broadcaster. 

You don’t need 450 restaurants to be in the media business. If you have an email list, you have a channel. A text list that reaches people right on their phone is a channel. So is a newsletter, a broadcast channel, or a Patreon community. Each one gathers people who chose to hear from you. 

Most businesses treat those channels like a to-do list. Send the email. Post the update. Push the offer. McDonald’s is treating its footprint like a network, something with value of its own.