Starbucks is the top quick service restaurant brand with $166 million of Impact Media Value according to General Sentiment’s Q1 2013 QSR MediaMatch. Taco Bell ($89 million), Chipotle ($51 million) and Kentucky Fried Chicken ($36 million) remained in the top four. Burger King ($33 million) rounded out the top five, moving up one place while McDonald’s ($29 million) and Pizza Hut ($21 million) each dropped a spot.
IHOP ($16 million) was the biggest mover this quarter, jumping from nineteenth to ninth as a result of its free pancakes promotion for National Pancake Day in February. McDonald’s ($29 million), Wendy’s ($21 million) and Applebee's ($18 million) ranked sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively. Pizza Hut ($16 million) came in tenth.
“Most of the QSR brands maintained their positions this quarter, while a few saw minor movements in the rankings,” says Pete Moran, CEO of General Sentiment. “The larger social media story is IHOP’s movement from nineteenth to ninth, which was the result of a successful PR campaign substantiated by social media analytics.”
More details follow on what drove Impact Media Value for the top five QSR brands:
· Starbucks retained the top spot again this quarter. In January, the company reported a 13-percent increase in profit, and Starbucks began selling mobile start-up Square’s credit card reader in 7,000 stores. The companies offered customers a rebate that effectively made the reader free.
· Taco Bell remained in second place for Q1 2013. The fast food chain’s Super Bowl ad generated a lot of discussion in February. The ad featured elderly people sneaking out of retirement homes to party and eat at Taco Bell.
· Chipotle held onto third. The majority of Chipotle’s Impact Media Value stemmed from a rumor started in early February that led many to believe that they could receive free burritos by kissing in a Chipotle restaurant on Valentine’s Day. While Chipotle simply informed customers that this was false, competitor Qdoba offered a similar discount.
· Kentucky Fried Chicken stayed in fourth. In February, parent company Yum Brands announced that it expected 2013 earnings to shrink as a result of a food safety scare in China. KFC’s sales suffered at the end of 2012 and in the beginning of 2013 as negative publicity surrounded chemical residue found in its chicken.
· Burger King rose one spot to fifth. In late February, the company found its Twitter account had been hacked. The Burger King logo was replaced with a McDonald’s one, and fake tweets appeared.
The report also provided MediaMatch data for IHOP, showing the most suitable TV show matches for the QSR brand. The top five television show matches based on overlap with the IHOP audience, which contains 135,884 mentioners, are "The Jamie Foxx Show," "Guy Code," "Beyond Scared Straight," "Tyler Perry’s House of Payne," and "Bad Girls Club."
