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McDonald's US CMO steps down amid falling sales, L'Oréal leads with entertainment over product, and Kraft Heinz flags pricing headwinds to volume recovery.
McDonald's just lost its top US marketer as sales slide — a sharp reminder of how fast CMO accountability has shifted. Plus, L'Oréal is quietly reinventing brand content, and Kraft Heinz's recovery story has a catch.
In this episode:
The FMCG Marketing Daily is a concise briefing for FMCG and CPG marketers, brand managers and CMOs, hosted by Marco & Klara. New episode every day.
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Also from Marco & Klara: The Digital Commerce Daily · The Health Marketing Daily
The essential morning briefing for brand leaders in fast-moving consumer goods. Hosted by Marco and Klara — two senior strategists with decades of experience inside global CPG companies and consultancies. Every episode covers retail media and distribution shifts, brand and competitor moves from Unilever, Coke, Nestlé, and challenger brands, and the macro and regulatory forces reshaping the category. Authoritative. Analytical. No noise. Built for brand managers, trade marketers, CMOs, and agency directors who need to stay ahead.
Marco: Morning — we've got a sharp set of stories for you today.
Klara: We do. A CMO exits McDonald's as sales slide, which raises some pointed questions about marketing accountability.
Marco: Then L'Oréal is quietly reinventing what brand advertising looks like — through serialised short-form storytelling.
Klara: And Kraft Heinz says its recovery is on track. We'll test that claim.
Marco: Straight in.
Marco: McDonald's has just lost its top marketing executive in the US — and the timing says everything.
Klara: McDonald's is one of the most recognised fast-food brands on the planet. For a long time, it felt almost untouchable commercially. But the last year or so has been rough — consumers, especially in the US, have been pulling back on spending, and that's shown up in McDonald's sales figures.
Marco: So here's what happened. The US Chief Marketing Officer — the person responsible for all brand and advertising decisions — has stepped down. The departure comes directly in the middle of a period of declining sales. No sugarcoating it. When results dip, marketing leadership tends to feel it first.
Klara: And this is worth unpacking, because I think there's a question buried in here that every brand manager should be asking. How much of a sales downturn is actually marketing's fault? McDonald's has pricing pressure, economic headwinds, changing consumer habits — none of that sits exclusively with the CMO.
Marco: That's true, but I'd argue the accountability shift we're seeing is real and it's accelerating. Five years ago, a CMO could point to brand health scores — things like how well-liked or well-known a brand is — and buy themselves time. Now boards and CEOs want revenue, and they want it quickly. Marketing leaders are being measured like commercial directors. If the numbers are down, someone carries that.
Klara: Which is a double pressure for FMCG brand managers watching this. Your job is increasingly about driving short-term sales and protecting long-term brand strength at the same time. Those two things can pull in opposite directions.
Marco: And the McDonald's story is a reminder that when they do pull apart, it's usually the person at the top of marketing who takes the hit.
Klara: Right — worth chewing on. Now, let's move to our next story.
Marco: L'Oréal is rethinking how it uses content — and the direction it's moving in is worth paying close attention to.
Klara: For most of its history, beauty advertising has followed a pretty familiar pattern. Show the product, show the result, maybe bring in a celebrity. That format worked well when TV was dominant and you had thirty seconds to make an impression. But short-form video — the kind people scroll through on TikTok or Instagram Reels — has completely changed the rules of engagement. People skip anything that feels like an ad.
Marco: So L'Oréal is trying something different. They're building what's called a microdrama strategy — short, serialised stories told in episodes, designed to hook you like a mini TV show. The key detail is this: the product comes second. The story comes first. L'Oréal is deliberately leading with entertainment, not with a lipstick or a serum.
Klara: And it's a significant move, because most FMCG brands still organise their content the other way around. The product is the hero, the story exists to serve it. L'Oréal is inverting that.
Marco: This is the bet they're making. If you can hold someone's attention for a whole episode — even multiple episodes — the brand association you build is far deeper than any fifteen-second ad could achieve. It's brand-building through entertainment rather than interruption.
Klara: I think the logic is sound, but I'd push on the scale point. L'Oréal can afford to produce serialised content and absorb the risk if it doesn't convert immediately. Most brand managers in personal care don't have that runway. So what does this model actually mean for everyone else?
Marco: It's a proof of concept, not a template to copy directly. But it does force a harder question — if your brand content isn't interesting enough to watch voluntarily, why would anyone pay attention to it at all?
Klara: That's the question to bring to your next content review. Up next — our third story of the day.
Marco: Kraft Heinz says it's on a solid foundation for growth — but the details tell a more complicated story.
Klara: Some context first. Over the past couple of years, big food brands like Kraft Heinz raised their prices sharply to cover rising ingredient and production costs. That worked for a while. But shoppers eventually pushed back — they switched to cheaper own-label alternatives, or just bought less. Volume fell. Volume, in simple terms, means how much product is actually leaving shelves.
Marco: So Kraft Heinz is now trying to win those shoppers back. The company is describing its current position as a solid foundation for volume recovery heading into the new year. But in the same breath, they're flagging that inflation hasn't gone away, and that further price increases may still be needed. Those two things — wanting more volume while also potentially raising prices again — are pulling hard against each other.
Klara: And this is the central tension for every major food brand right now, not just Kraft Heinz. You've spent years building a price premium — convincing shoppers that your ketchup or your cheese sauce is worth more than the retailer's own version. If you start discounting to get volume back, you risk permanently undermining that premium. Shoppers have a long memory for price.
Marco: I'd add that the risk cuts both ways though. If you hold the line on price for too long, you lose the habitual buyer — the person who just grabs your brand on autopilot. Once they've switched to own-label and found it perfectly fine, getting them back is expensive.
Klara: Which is exactly why Kraft Heinz's situation matters beyond Kraft Heinz. The question isn't whether to protect margin or chase volume. The question is how long you can afford to do both at once — and most brands are closer to that limit than they want to admit.
Marco: Today's clearest lesson — when sales slip, marketing leadership is the first place people look, whether that's fair or not.
Klara: So be honest with yourself: does your brand build real demand, or does it just maintain it? Because right now, maintaining isn't enough.