Food ads: 10 live restaurant and food brand ads, broken down

Short answer: we pulled 10 food ads that were live in the US Meta Ad Library on October 22, 2026, from Taco Bell, Wendy's, Domino's, Popeyes, Liquid Death and HelloFresh. 4 of the 10 put a price or a free offer on the picture. The other 6 sold a craving, a new product or a reason to switch. All 9 that show a start date began between August 12 and October 18, 2026.

The 10 live ads below come from the public Meta Ad Library. The library shows when an ad started and what it says. It does not show sales, so we make no claim about results. A restaurant owner can read this page as a menu of formats: pick one, swap in your own dish and your own price. If you sell a packaged food or drink online, the last section is closer to your case. For more static formats outside food, see our image ad examples.

What do food ads running in October 2026 have in common?

The 10 ads split into two groups. One group puts a number on the picture: a price, a fee or "free". The other group shows the food so close that the price can wait for the menu.

Two patterns repeat. The food fills most of the frame in 9 of the 10; the Wendy's flowchart is the one exception, and there the words are the joke. And the price ads all come from chains that compete on value, while most ads for a new item or flavor kept the price off the picture.

What this means for a restaurant: decide first whether you compete on price or on craving. A small pizza place with a lunch deal should copy the Domino's ad. A bakery with one hero pastry should copy the Popeyes close-up.

Which fast food ads lead with a price?

4 fast food ads in the set put a number on the picture, and each frames it a different way: a joke, an event, a single-serve product and a first-order gift. If you searched for fast food ads, this section and the next are your list: every ad in them comes from a US fast food chain.

Wendy's: the "Hungry?" flowchart

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Wendy's started this vertical ad on October 18, 2026, with the text "all roads lead to the $7.99 Dave's Single Combo." Every branch of the chart ends at the same combo, including the "no" branch: "you will be eventually."

Lesson: a price ad can still be funny. The joke makes people read the chart, and the chart makes them read the price.

Wendy's: $0 delivery on game day

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This one started on October 15, 2026, and ties the offer to college football: "On game-day snack duty? Wendy's has you covered." The offer is the fee, not the food price.

Lesson: "$0" reads faster than a percentage. If your margin is in the food, discount the delivery instead.

Domino's: $6.99 each for a pizza made for one

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Domino's started a set of ads for its new single-serve pizza on October 12, 2026: "The NEW Domino is perfect when everyone wants their own thing." The picture shows two people in a car, each with a box. The price sits in a red block, and the small print is longer than the headline.

Lesson: the photo explains the product (one box per person) before the price does.

Popeyes: free chicken on the first order

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Popeyes started this ad on August 12, 2026, and it was still live 10 weeks later: "Your first Popeyes order just got a whole lot tastier. Spend $10+ & get FREE 2pc Signature Chicken."

Lesson: a first-order gift buys a new online customer. That is a different goal from selling a meal today, so measure it differently.

Which fast food ads sell a craving instead of a price?

The other 4 chain ads keep the price off the picture. They sell texture, a new sauce or a launch. Each one makes the food or the drink the hero of the frame.

Taco Bell: the crunchwrap in a car

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Taco Bell started this ad on October 15, 2026: "diablo ranch on a crispy chicken crunchwrap slider? that's how you know someone's got standards." It looks like a phone photo from a parked car, with the text in lower case.

Lesson: a phone photo of your food in a real place looks like a post from a friend. You can shoot this one yourself today.

Taco Bell: a pink limited drink

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Started September 28, 2026, with three words of copy: "the perfect sip". The cup, the color and the handwritten font carry the whole ad.

Popeyes: three words and honey

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Popeyes started this vertical ad on October 1, 2026. The picture says "Sweet. Crunchy. Buttery." and the text adds the price: "Three words. One very good reason to get both hands involved. The new $5 Honey Chicken Biscuit."

Lesson: three texture words and one drip of honey do the work of a whole menu description.

Domino's: "we did it first"

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Started October 12, 2026, with the text "we did it first". A folded pizza sits on a phone stand on a store table, under "Introducing the Duomino". It borrows the look of a tech launch for a pizza.

Lesson: a joke about something everyone saw this week travels further than a feature list. It also expires fast, so plan a replacement.

How do packaged food and meal kit brands advertise?

A brand that sells food online, not at a counter, has to sell the reason to switch: from candy, from takeout, from the supermarket. Both live ads in this group do that in one line.

Liquid Death and Feastables: a collab flavor

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Liquid Death started this ad on October 7, 2026: "Soda-Flavored Sparkling Water | 10 Calories | Peanut-Free | YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT CANDY." The picture names the partner brand at the top and Amazon at the bottom, so the shopper knows where to buy.

HelloFresh: four reasons in four plates

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The text opens "No wait. Half the cost of takeout." The picture splits into four plates, each with one reason. The headline names one buyer: "us single girlies".

Four food ads Selzee made

These four are from the Selzee gallery, made for the brands named on them. Each one opens with the customer's problem or one hard number.

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Lesson: a packaged food ad works best when it names one thing the buyer wants to stop: jitters, high grocery bills, takeout.

How do you make a food ad for a small restaurant or food brand?

Start with one dish, one photo and one line. Here is the order we would follow:

1. Pick one item. The ads above each sell one product. A menu of ten dishes in one ad shows ten small pictures that nobody can taste.
2. Shoot it close. Fill the frame with the food. A phone in daylight is enough: the Taco Bell crunchwrap ad looks like a phone photo.
3. Decide: price or craving. If your price is the reason to come, put it on the picture in large digits. If not, use three words about taste or texture.
4. Use the right shape. Meta's spec for an Instagram feed image is 4:5 at 1440 x 1800 pixels, with a 40-character headline (Meta Ads Guide, Instagram Feed image, 2026). For Stories it is 9:16, and Meta asks you to keep about 14% at the top and 35% at the bottom free of text (Meta Ads Guide, Instagram Stories image, 2026).
5. Check the size before you upload it. Drop your dish photo into the checker below. It shows what Instagram crops in each format and gives you the fixed file to download.

What this means for a food brand: a 4:5 picture takes more of the phone screen than a square one, so the dish looks bigger at no extra cost. To set up the campaign itself, follow our guide on how to run Instagram ads. To plan which angles to test over a month, read our Instagram ads strategy.

How Selzee makes food ads

Selzee is an AI ad generator. It finds ads that are working for other brands right now and remakes them for yours, with your products, logo and colors. A restaurant or food brand gives it a website, and it makes ads from the brand's own pictures. Every Ad Library ad on this page carries a "Try on my brand" button: pick the Wendy's flowchart or the Popeyes close-up, and Selzee makes that format for your food. To see what your local competitors run, start from the competitor ad finder.

Food ads: FAQ