McDonald’s puts other brands’ ads on its menu boards. The test runs in 450 restaurants

McDonald’s is selling space on its digital menu boards to other brands. Bloomberg first reported the pilot on 21 September 2026. It runs in about 450 company-owned restaurants in the United States and started in August. The company has put the wider ad business at up to 1 billion dollars over time.

The ads show up after the customer has already ordered

A screen carries the ad once the order is in. The customer sees it while waiting for the food, in the drive-thru lane or inside the restaurant. A McDonald’s spokesperson called the pilot a way to share “post-purchase content that customers may find helpful”. No advertiser has been named.

Menu boards, kiosks and the McDonald’s app sell the same thing

Menu boards are one piece. The plan also takes in the McDonald’s app and the ordering kiosks. Put together, that is a retail media network, which means ad space sold by a shop or a restaurant chain to outside brands. Grocers built these first, and they keep widening them: Walmart has opened its marketplace data to suppliers, and Ace Hardware has tied its ads to the weather forecast.

McDonald’s says the space should bring extra money to its restaurants without “adding significant operational complexity”.

The 1 billion dollar figure sits inside a plan called NEXT

McDonald’s set out a growth plan named NEXT at its investor day in late September 2026. Advertising is one line in it, beside customer growth and restaurant efficiency. The company frames 1 billion dollars as an opportunity over time, not a target for a single year.

Anyone planning drive-thru or outdoor money for 2027 can open the media plan and check one line: whether restaurant screens sit under digital out-of-home or under retail media. The two are bought in different places and counted in different ways, and IAB Europe is still writing the rules for counting in-store ads.