Consumers responding to ‘fast-food diets’

By Mark Brandau

Nation's Restaurant News

Feb. 8, 2010

While the weight loss success stories touted in commercials for Taco Bell and Subway came from years of calorie counting, the restaurant companies responsible for these “fast-food diet” promotions have achieved their goal of new consumer recognition in a fraction of the time.

According to data from two consumer research firms, BrandIndex and Ace Metrix, Taco Bell and Subway, as well as other restaurant brands like KFC and Applebee’s, which are also pitching healthfulness, have garnered the attention of new demographic groups and elicited favorable perceptions with their new ads.

“Overall, people are improving their opinions of quick service at a faster rate,” said Ted Marzilli, senior vice president of New York-based firm BrandIndex. “They’re still not ready or comfortable advocating to their family to eat at a QSR; there’s still a bit of a stigma.

“The more QSRs can do to take that stigma away, the better they’ll do,” he said. “Quality and healthful initiatives will help, as long as they’re credible.”

BrandIndex research — compiled from daily consumer surveys about companies on different traits of brand health like quality, value and willingness to recommend — shows that quick-service restaurants are getting customers to think of them in a more positive light by accentuating cues like higher-quality menu items or lower-calorie fare.

Fast feeders have started to score higher in recent weeks, according to BrandIndex, narrowing the gap between brands in that sector and those in the casual-dining segment. Casual dining’s average index score improved 0.6 points in late January, while quick service’s jumped 2.0 points.

Quick service widened its lead over casual dining in the average satisfaction score for 2009, increasing 1.5 points while casual dining’s satisfaction score fell 0.5 points.

“Over the course of 2009, quick-service restaurants really started to pick up in consumer scores,” Marzilli said. “The economy started it, but then the QSRs really responded. They spend a lot of money advertising anyway, but you’re seeing this other component on the quality side come into play.”

BrandIndex broke out data specifically for Taco Bell’s Drive-Thru Diet campaign, and the chain’s daily “recommend” score for women 18 years and older started at 22 on Dec. 1, 2009, about a week before the debut of advertising for the Drive-Thru Diet. The score rose to 28 after the diet promotion’s rollout, staying around that level through the rest of the year. After the New Year, the “recommend” score shot up, to a peak of 37 before regressing somewhat to around 29 on Jan. 26, the last day data were collected.

“The numbers are very early for the Drive-Thru Diet menu,” Marzilli said, “but it does seem that, particularly among young people, they’re responding well, and buzz scores have gone up. Maybe it’s resonating with the 18-to-34 bracket because it kind of justifies or makes them feel better about something they’ve been doing anyway, which is eating quick-service Mexican food.”

Los Angeles-based Ace Metrix also has seen quick-service chains garner extra consumer attention of late. The “Ace Score” of several restaurant commercials shows that all but one of the newer and health-focused ads scored higher than the restaurant industry average score. The Ace Score is an aggregate of ratings by consumers on a commercial’s persuasiveness and “watchability.” It is based on a 950-point scale and the average score for restaurants is 514.

Applebee’s had the highest Ace Score of the group of healthful commercials, based on its 30-second spot for its menu of meals with less than 550 calories. That commercial garnered a 628 score, and a 15-second version scored 596. Subway’s 15-second spot for its Fresh Fit Meals scored a 599, while two other 30-second versions racked up Ace Scores of 590 and 577.

Taco Bell’s 30-second commercial, starring “Drive-thru Diet” spokeswoman Christine Dougherty, who lost 54 pounds over two years by replacing her normal quick-service fare with items from Taco Bell’s Fresco menu, scored 575. However, a second commercial, a 15-second spot introduced in early January, scored slightly below the industry average at 500.

KFC, which earlier this year marketed a 395-calorie meal for $3.95, had a 30-second ad included in Ace Metrix’s study promoting Fiery Grilled Wings that scored 593.

Ju Young Lee, co-founder and chief scientist at Ace Metrix, said that while the health-focused ads were somewhat polarizing — with some consumers “getting it” and others feeling insulted at being pitched a fast-food diet — the changes in Ace Scores show that the various campaigns have helped consumers think differently about the brands behind the ads.

nrn.com