McDonald’s has yet again made its way to the headlines with its decision to test advertising from other brands on its digital menu screens at 450 of its 13,800 restaurants in the US. The pilot turns a familiar restaurant touchpoint into advertising inventory, opening up a new revenue stream from the customer journey that already exists. While the experiment is currently limited to the US, it raises a larger question for India: as businesses build increasingly direct relationships with consumers, could the spaces and platforms they own become the next frontier for advertising?
The answer may already be visible in India’s quick-commerce, e-commerce and food-delivery ecosystems. McDonald’s India may not have announced a similar third-party advertising rollout yet, but the underlying infrastructure is increasingly digital. Westlife Foodworld, which operates McDonald’s restaurants in West and South India, has been expanding its digital ecosystem across its app, self-ordering kiosks, digital menu boards and other customer touchpoints. “QSRs are a good example of where this could go because they have high footfalls and a large, recurring customer base. As India’s F&B market continues to grow across QSRs, cafés, restaurants and newer formats, there will be more opportunities to monetise the ecosystem around each customer,” says Lavanya Jayashankar, Founder, Hotshare. “At Hotshare, we look at F&B businesses from an investment perspective, right down to their unit economics. So, when an outlet can generate additional revenue from assets it already has, whether that is its customer base, space or digital touchpoints, it can make the underlying business more efficient and create greater value for investors. I see this as another layer of the F&B opportunity in India, rather than a separate business altogether.”
Could QSRs become the next media real estate in India?
For Tejas Maha, Associate Director - Media, White Rivers Media, the model has the potential to work in India, but measurement will determine whether it becomes commercially meaningful. “A similar model could work in India. QSRs already have screens, kiosks and apps inside the consumption journey. Ads there reach people in context, while they order. The deciding factor is measurement. Advertisers will invest only if this inventory proves incremental value and protects the customer experience. If QSRs get both right, they can join the wider retail media mix,” he explains. That last point is critical. Unlike a conventional billboard or digital display, a QSR’s advertising inventory exists inside an environment where the consumer is already making a purchase. The opportunity is therefore not simply to deliver impressions, but potentially to connect exposure with action.
Kalyan Kumar, Founder of Klug Klug, believes the fact that the consumer has already chosen the QSR gives the model a fundamental advantage. “Whoever's coming inside a McDonald's is already sold on McDonald's. They're having, they're a converted consumer.” However, he believes brands and QSRs will have to understand the audience before filling the screens with advertising. Then, the challenge will also be about figuring out how to monetise that attention on these ads without making the experience feel like another advertising break. “Find some degree of saliency so that it doesn't jar their experience. Second is understand your consumer to say what therefore will work”, he suggests.
The implication is that the value of this inventory will depend as much on contextual relevance as on footfall. A fashion, beauty or lifestyle offer that fits the audience could potentially add value to the visit. An irrelevant product pushed at the wrong moment could simply turn an owned customer experience into another cluttered media environment. Quick commerce has already crossed the line. If McDonald’s represents a potential physical extension of retail media, India’s quick-commerce platforms are already demonstrating how valuable consumer touchpoints can become. Zepto, Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart have increasingly transformed their apps into media platforms, offering brands sponsored listings, search placements, banners and other forms of advertising visibility. According to media reports, Zepto’s advertising revenue rose 151% year-on-year to ₹1,636 crore in FY26 from ₹651 crore in FY25, with more than 2,400 brands using its advertising platform during the year. Advertising contributed around 7.8% of its annual Net Receivables Value.
The economics are compelling because these platforms sit extremely close to the purchase decision. “Consumer intent is driving this shift. Commerce platforms sit where people search, browse and buy. Brands can link an ad to a purchase. Platforms earn from data and attention they already hold,” says Maha. This is changing the role of media itself. For years, brands largely evaluated advertising through metrics such as reach, frequency and awareness. Commerce media adds another layer: did the exposure contribute to a transaction? For example, a person tracking his order on Swiggy Instamart will come across an ad, as he looks around the screen, but will he click on the link for purchase or check the product?
“Budgets will gradually move towards these platforms, mainly in categories where discovery and purchase happen together. Broad-reach channels will still build demand. Commerce platforms will capture it,” Maha adds.
The distinction is important. Retail media is not necessarily replacing traditional advertising. Instead, it is moving a greater part of the media mix closer to the moment when consumers are deciding what to buy. “The bigger change is how brands judge media, with attribution and business outcomes weighing more than reach,” he says. A quick-commerce company already has consumers searching for products. An e-commerce platform knows what people are browsing. A food-delivery app knows when, where and what consumers order. A QSR has customers sitting in its restaurants, interacting with menus and kiosks.
As Karthik Shankar P S, Independent Leader Digital Marketing & Growth Strategy, puts it, “People today don't just consume content. They get buried in it. On their phones and on the street, most of what reaches them is thrown at them, so they've learned to tune it out. The blind eye is now a default setting.” A physical retail environment can therefore offer something digital advertising increasingly struggles with: contextual attention. “A McDonald's visit is different. People are there because they want to be. They're relaxed and paying attention, often more than they give their own feeds,” he says.
But Karthik believes timing will be crucial. “If a brand greets you with an ad the moment you walk in, it feels like an intrusion.Put the same message after the customer has paid, and it becomes part of the moment. They've just completed an action, they're waiting, and whatever shows up next feels a little more worth noticing.” That is also where the risk lies. “Get it wrong, spam the menu board, and McDonald's won't only lose attention. It will lose the reason people wanted to walk in,” he says.
From commerce platforms to physical retail
The opportunity could eventually stretch beyond QSRs and quick commerce. Petrol pumps, pharmacies, supermarkets, malls, cinemas and other high-footfall environments all have some combination of physical space, digital screens, transaction data or recurring customers that could potentially be packaged as advertising inventory.
However, keeping in mind the Indian scenario, Sanjay Trehan, Digital Strategy Advisor, believes QSRs are particularly suited to the model. “Ultimately, it is about monetising digital touchpoints wherever they exist and QSRs are pretty ripe for this. They have ready infrastructure viz. digital menus and kiosks and a captive audience. What would work well here would be localised campaigns that would appeal to the neighbourhood.”
Deepshikha Bhardwaj, National Media Strategy Lead, Schbang, similarly sees QSRs as an emerging retail-media opportunity. “QSRs are increasingly emerging as the next frontier for retail media. McDonald’s testing third-party advertising on its digital screens is a strong signal of where the opportunity is headed.” But she also adds a caveat: “The winning model will be where brands add value to the moment rather than simply occupy another screen.”
That may ultimately determine how far the model travels in India. For consumer businesses, advertising offers a way to extract more value from assets they already own — their customers, physical spaces, digital interfaces, first-party data and purchase journeys. For advertisers, it offers a chance to get closer to intent and, increasingly, measure what happens after the ad is seen. The result is a gradual blurring of the line between where consumers shop and where brands advertise. McDonald’s may be testing the idea on a menu screen in the US. India’s quick-commerce platforms have already built businesses around it.
The next phase could see more businesses asking the same question: if consumers are already here to buy, can this also become a place for brands to advertise?
