McDonald’s moves U.S. Media Buying and Planning from Omnicom to Publicis
McDonald’s is moving its multi-million dollar national media buying and planning from Omnicom to Publicis Groupe’s Starcom thereby ending a two-decade partnership with Omnicom media shop OMD USA. Publicis was able to impress the fast food chain and win its lucrative national media and buying by proving its digital acumen on other assignments. It is also believed that Tariq Hassan, who was named McDonald’s CMO in August, may be instrumental to the change.
The move which reflects McDonald’s wider digital ambitions—and how impressed it’s been with Publicis in that area is expected to take effect in January 2022. According to McDonald’s representatives, McDonald’s plans to transition its media buying and planning to Starcom starting in January. The completion of the shift is expected by the end of Q1 2022.
It is also believed that the change is part of an effort to streamline its digital marketing strategy. Sources from the fast food giant indicates that the company is giving attention to a tighter integration between paid and earned/owned media programs, which aligns with the way more consumers connect with marketing messages.
McDonald’s shift in the handling of its media duties represents a major expansion of the brand’s existing work with Publicis. The national media buying and planning oversight is being added to Publicis’ management of customer data analytics and digital marketing across McDonald’s app, website and CRM channels.
According to Kantar Media, McDonald’s spent $363.6 million on national media for the first nine months of 2021—a 2.8% decrease from $374.2 million during the same period a year before. The numbers indicate McDonald’s shifting priorities in national advertising, as a comparison between 2020 and 2019 further shows. Two years ago, McDonald’s allocated $658 million to national media; in all of 2020, the brand’s expenditures in that segment were $599.9 million, an 8.8% drop.
It’s important to note that Kantar’s spending figures do not include social or paid search. McDonald’s declined to comment on its media budgeting. But it seems reasonable to assume that the company transferred more dollars to those digital categories, making it appear that its national ad spending decreased, when in fact, may have remained stable or even increased.
Meanwhile, OMD will still continue to work on McDonald’s USA local media as well as some unspecified international markets, sources from the fast food giant said.
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