McDonald's menus become ad channel

Hi there, this is your daily ☕️ MarketingShot.

In today's MarketingShot:

🍔 McDonald's drive-thru menus are becoming a new ad channel

🎬 YouTube's new AI tools A/B test your thumbnails and dub your videos

😰 AI slop is upending your social media career

💳 Citi is turning 70M cardholders into an ad target for you

🔍 Google's new UK choice screen puts AI rivals in front of your searchers

Plus: 💡 5 strategies & tactics, 🎁 6 other news you might like, and 🧰 6 tools.

🍔 McDonald's drive-thru menus are becoming a new ad channel LINK

McDonald's started testing a media network last month in 450 company-owned U.S. restaurants, showing ads from other brands on its app, kiosks, menu boards and inside restaurants, aiming to grow it into a billion-dollar business.

Global chief marketing officer Morgan Flatley called commerce media one of the fastest-growing areas in advertising, expected to top $100 billion in the U.S. by 2028, and said the offering adds revenue with little extra cost.

Flatley said McDonald's Media Network brings no operational complexity and no disruption to the customer experience, and the formal announcement came during the company's first investor day since 2023 on Wednesday.

🎬 YouTube's new AI tools A/B test your thumbnails and dub your videos LINK

YouTube revealed a set of new tools on Wednesday that use AI to A/B test creators' video thumbnails and titles, plus auto-dub live videos into other languages in real time.

The Ask Studio feature gives creators feedback on draft videos, suggests alternative titles and thumbnails, and explains channel analytics, and if permitted, it can monitor thumbnail performance and build tests for older videos on its own.

Starting in 2027, the A/B testing feature will let creators upload and test three different cuts for Shorts, while a Dynamic Thumbnails tool lets YouTube pick which uploaded thumbnail viewers see.

😰 AI slop is upending your social media career LINK

AI slop is reshaping how people build careers in social media and marketing, as a Brandweek 2026 workshop co-hosted by Luma showed how AI agents and a creative platform are reaching creative teams.

Luma's first annual report, "State of Creative Professionals and AI: 2026," surveyed 760 creative professionals and found that 81% use AI to create and release content, with agencies leading adoption while freelancers lag behind.

Alexia Adana demonstrated Luma's tools using a real Oakley workshop, showing digital twins of models and a "Brand DNA" built from brand guidelines, though she stressed the hybrid workflow stays rooted in human authorship and real photography.

💳 Citi is turning 70M cardholders into an ad target for you LINK

Citi launched Citi Commerce Media on Wednesday, a business that lets advertisers reach the bank's more than 70 million U.S. cardholders while helping them understand audiences and measure how their campaigns performed.

The new business draws on 6.5 billion annual transactions, putting Citi alongside Chase Media Solutions, which targets and measures merchant offers using data from about 80 million consumers, and Mastercard Commerce Media.

Commerce media gives banks revenue from cardholder relationships beyond interchange fees, which reached roughly $66 billion in 2025, as merchants and brands pay for advertising, customer acquisition and measurable sales tied to spending.

🔍 Google's new UK choice screen puts AI rivals in front of your searchers LINK

Britain's Competition and Markets Authority today put out a revised proposal that would require Google to show UK users a search choice screen of up to 12 providers on Android devices and Chrome, with AI assistants now able to qualify.

The selection would work as a "5+7" structure, showing the five most popular eligible providers plus seven picked fully at random, with users able to test-drive a rival for at least a week and getting an annual reminder about their choice.

The regulator reopened the measure because the market shifted, citing Google's move of its conversational search to Gemini 3.5 Flash at its I/O conference on May 19, 2026, and rising numbers of users adopting generative AI tools for search.

💡 Strategies & Tactics

> How to build cross-sell email flows that drive repeat purchases: Use a customer's first purchase to time and personalize follow-up emails recommending complementary products, so recurring sales feel helpful rather than pushy.

> Why Unpolished Reels Win: An Instagram Growth Strategy for Business: Post rough, off-the-cuff Reels that name your viewer's specific identity in the first seconds, since authenticity and specificity beat polished production for engagement.

> B2B brands turn to creator video to fight AI slop and aid AI search: Business brands hire subject-matter experts, not big-follower celebrities, for credible product videos that buyers and AI recommendation engines increasingly trust.

> Why More Traffic Won’t Fix Your Growth Problem (But This Will): Fixing funnel leaks in messaging, trust, and checkout drives far more revenue than buying more traffic, since conversion improvements have no cost ceiling.

> How mid-size brands can make the most of their media dollars: Balance brand-building with performance ads, measure real sales growth over each platform's return figures, and cap experimental tech spending so it doesn't drain working budgets.

Other news you might like

• Amazon’s new plugin lets sellers manage their entire e-commerce business with AILINK

• DoorDash Hands Brands Live Shelf Data and Retail InsightsLINK

• Adobe expands creative tool access to Google Gemini, brings Acrobat to ClaudeLINK

• Multimodal Search Type Filter In Google Search Console Performance ReportLINK

• Influencer Promo Codes Outperform Ads as Holiday Purchase Driver, Survey FindsLINK

• Google Ads Investment Strategy New Holistic & Growth ModesLINK

🧰 Trending tools

Ami AI: analyzes your website, targets high-converting buyers, and plans outreach backwards from your lead goals, then runs and self-corrects campaigns automatically.LINK

Adomate: generates Meta ads at scale using your ad account, ad library, and customer reviews through traceable, transparent workflowsLINK

Naoma AI Demo Agent V2: runs interactive AI-powered product demos in 33 languages, letting every stakeholder explore features independently and reducing your sales team's follow-up workload.LINK

AI Search Console: tracks brand mentions, rankings, and share of voice across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, generating client-ready reports without manual spreadsheets.LINK

Cekura: automates QA testing for voice and chat AI agents using simulated conversations, response evaluation, production monitoring, and CI/CD integrationLINK

Backlink Skills: Awesome skills for submitting url to free websites. Get more backlinks for your website to get more traffic.LINK

See you tomorrow for a new dose of ☕️ MarketingShot!