McDonald’s

Ad platforms are nixing credit card payments; LLMs are getting really good at unmasking online users; and McDonald’s offers a case study in how not to do organic social media.

DMG Media has a new social-focused agency services biz; AI search and AI slop sites are cannibalizing recipe sites; and a new TikTok trend blasts brands for not delivering free stuff they didn’t promise.

OMD’s Emily Proctor outlined the criteria the ad agency uses to evaluate alt IDs. She also shared which five IDs OMD uses most often and why.

Move over, Mr. Met — it’s Grimace’s time to shine. Plus, Zeta Global has acquired email marketing and identity company LiveIntent for $250 million.

In today’s newsletter: Spotify surges on strong Q2; how Gen Z media preferences are transforming the Olympics; and QSR companies ditch subscription services after first-party data gains fail to materialize.

In today’s newsletter: Yum Brands feasts on cross-brand customer data; YouTube’s focus has shifted away from services to software and APIs; and Walmart Connect announces updates to its DSP, including allowing conquesting in sponsored search listings.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Primed For Interruption Amazon is finalizing details for Prime Video ads. Commercials come to Prime in the US on January 29, followed by the UK, Germany and Canada in February, Deadline reports. “Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements,” reads […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. A Win Is A Win? Blue-chip accounts are coveted on Madison Ave, but it’s impossible to tell which clients are really the key wins for the agencies involved.  Winning the McDonald’s or Coca-Cola account comes with cachet and solid earned media, but the […]

Programmatic OOH – paired with new cross-channel management capabilities – means prospects can now be served OOH ads on their actual journey to the store as part of a more holistic marketing strategy. Omri Argaman, chief marketing officer at Zoomd, explains why OOH campaigns can have a massive impact and how to maximize it. 

Personalization platform Dynamic Yield has the distinction of having been acquired by not one but two large brands. McDonald’s bought the company in 2019 and then sold it to Mastercard late last year. “I guess this is just our destiny,” said Ori Bauer, Dynamic Yield’s CEO.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Weird First Dates … I Mean Data Nothing beats the holidays for first-party data gimmicks, but summer is putting on a show. On Friday, Cheetos, a Pepsi brand, announced a giveaway for “fannie macs” – as in fanny packs for summer festivals that […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. WWD-See It To Believe It Ad tech is on tenterhooks waiting for privacy-related news from Apple’s upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference next week. Sandwiched between glitzy announcements about shiny new products and hardware, many expect a momentous mention as to whether Apple will start […]

McDonald’s has been criticized for alleged bias against Black-owned media. But McDonald’s recently struck a multiyear advertising deal with Pod Digital Media (PDM) as part of an effort to increase its ad spend with minority content creators and expand its reach with diverse audiences.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Hard Of Hearing Podcasters are rushing to add programmatic to their bag of monetization tricks. But they’re confronting familiar issues for publishers when software decides what ads to run and where, The Verge reports. An ad for HBO’s “The Sex Lives of College […]

Brands need first-party data, and they’re solving for that need through a mix of creativity, personalized products and the power of good old-fashioned celebrity endorsements. Which is why everyone in ad tech and digital media should take note of these initiatives, which span everything from personalized Oreos (dubbed the Oreo ID) to celebrity endorsements designed […]

While diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts to work with minority-owned media companies and hire a diverse workforce are important, brands also need to address a rapidly changing cultural landscape in the United States, according to Isaac Mizrahi, co-president and COO of Miami-based multicultural ad agency Alma Ad Agency (no relation to the fashion designer). […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Jed Hartman, Chief Commercial Officer, Channel Factory The 30-second spot has been the undisputed ruler of advertising units since the birth of broadcast TV. The storytelling, the emotion, the impact and the ROI have all […]

This week is earnings week, and there are many, many investor calls on the calendar. Couldn’t listen to them all? In this episode of The Big Story, the AdExchanger team gives you the quick lowdown on how some of the biggest advertisers and agencies did after a full quarter of COVID-19. We start out with […]

After a tough Q2, McDonald’s sees an opportunity to grow market share and accelerate recovery by bolstering its marketing spend. McDonald’s will add $200 million in incremental marketing spend for the rest of the year across the United States and its top international markets, CEO Chris Kempczinski said during its earnings call Tuesday. The amount […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Big Mac Budgets McDonald’s is increasing its marketing spend during the pandemic to gain share as smaller restaurant chains struggle. Doubling down on spend in markets where McDonald’s handles its own operations, including the United States, Australia and Canada, is part of a three-pronged […]

Your experience scrolling your social media feed will be very different from your friend’s. But when you go into a retail store, you’ll have the same experience as everyone else who steps in. So while digital-first companies like Amazon and eBay are built to create personalized experiences, brick-and-mortar retailers are not, said Liad Agmon, founder […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. That’s Settled Disney reached a deal with Amazon to carry Disney Plus on Fire TV sets. The two companies were at an impasse on a distribution deal because Amazon was demanding a substantial percentage of the media giant’s ad revenue, The Wall Street Journal […]

Nike continues to build out its digital platforms. On Wednesday, the athletic apparel giant revealed it had purchased the analytics startup Celect for an undisclosed price. Read the release. Celect marks Nike’s second analytics acquisition, following its 2018 purchase of customer analytics startup Zodiac Metrics, which was folded into Nike’s data science group, now led […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. No Mo’ CMO Silvia Lagnado, McDonald’s global CMO since 2015, will leave the company in October, Ad Age reports. McDonald’s plans to scrap the global CMO role in favor of two marketing SVPs: Bob Rupczynski will oversee marketing tech and Colin Mitchell will focus […]

McDonald’s is starting to throw a few ideas on the grill after spending around $300 million to acquire personalization and decision logic tech startup Dynamic Yield in March. Dynamic Yield’s technology has been integrated into the drive-thru experience at roughly 700 McDonald’s restaurants in North America so far with plans to roll out more and […]

McDonald’s is buying an Israeli startup called Dynamic Yield that provides personalization software to brands and publishers – but this acquisition is about a lot more than tailoring menus based on the weather or serving up customized content. The deal, announced late Monday, is the first major acquisition McDonald’s has made in around 20 years, and […]

We Are Unlimited, the integrated agency Omnicom launched to service the McDonald’s account earlier this year, has hired former iCrossing President Mark Mulhern as its new CEO. In an interview, Mulhern said he was attracted by the opportunity to test a new agency model. “The future of our industry is based on specialisms coming back […]

One of the many pressures facing holding companies is increased competition from management and IT consultancies like Accenture, Deloitte, IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers. While consulting firms may not be their biggest threat today, tomorrow could be another story. Holding companies tend to work from the bottom up, focusing on marketing initiatives like creative or media strategy […]

McDonald’s is on a “mass personalization” push to attract more millennials. Even though it markets to national audiences, many of its fast-food restaurants operate as local franchises. Thus, McDonald’s must create content that resonates at a community level in addition to its national assets. To pull off an operation at McDonald’s scale requires unity among […]

Has performance-based pay finally arrived for agencies? Traditionally, marketing services firms were paid on a set scope of billable hours worked by each employee on an account. But a growing number of advertisers are pushing for more tangible, ROI-based remuneration. The biggest recent example is McDonald’s. The quick-serve advertiser’s RFP process specified that agency compensation […]