Snap hires Kenny Mitchell, VP of brand content at McDonald's, as its first chief marketing officer as it rolls out a new ad campaign to promote its Android app
Garett Sloane / Ad Age :
Context & Ripple Effects
Snap is filling a gap in its executive bench: after bringing in Jeremi Gorman from Amazon ads as chief business officer in late 2018 and Sriram Krishnan from Facebook's mobile ad network in 2016, it now adds its first-ever chief marketing officer — and notably pulls one from the advertiser side rather than another platform.
There is history between the two companies: McDonald's was Snapchat's first sponsored geofilter partner back in June 2015, so Mitchell arrives knowing Snap both as a client and a media buy. His mandate is tied to a concrete product problem — a new ad campaign built specifically to promote Snap's Android app.
First-order effects
- Snap gains a dedicated marketing chief for the first time, with an immediate assignment: the Android app push, aimed at users beyond the iPhone-heavy base that has defined the product.
- McDonald's loses the VP overseeing its brand content at a moment when brands like it are building out their own in-house creative operations.
Second-order effects
- A CMO hired from a marquee advertiser strengthens Snap's pitch to the brand community it has been courting through self-serve Ad Manager and its Marketing API — buyer-side credibility becomes part of the sales motion.
- Other consumer apps competing for the same Android download funnel face a rival willing to run brand campaigns for its own app, raising the bar for paid user acquisition.
Third-order effects
- The pattern across these hires — Amazon sales, Facebook ads, now McDonald's marketing — points to Snap assembling a management team built from the advertising industry's established players, positioning the company as an ad platform rather than a social novelty.
- If brand-side executives keep crossing over into platform roles, the line between advertiser and media owner continues to blur, with consumer growth itself becoming something bought through ad campaigns rather than grown organically.
The trend: Consumer tech platforms are increasingly recruiting chief marketing officers out of major advertisers to professionalize paid user growth, and Snap's first CMO hire from McDonald's is one data point in that shift.