Fast Food
Fast Food Battles Beyond the Burger

By Eric Newman

In the world of fast food, the past 12 months have been a true litmus test, separating those chains which have consistently demonstrated terrifying branding prowess and those who desperately need to sharpen their strategic claws. The industry faced a continuing healthier-food trend, weakened consumer confidence, rising gas prices and increased commodities costs in the year past.
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Top Brands by Category:
  Brand/Parent Company Lead Agency/Location Total Sales ($ billions) Media Expenditures ($ millions) Quality Familiarity (%) Purchase Intent Equity  
  FAST FOOD
  1. McDonald’s DDB / Chicago, IL 28.75 769.90 6.48 96 7.27 65.2  
  2. Burger King / Texas Pacific Crispin, Porter + Bogusky / Miami, FL 8.56 257.3 6.62 94 7.19 63.8  
  3. Starbucks Wieden + Kennedy / Portland, OR 8.55 24.3 6.65 82 6.18 57.6  
  4. Subway MMB / Boston, MA 8.2 399.2 7.53 94 7.91 71.2  
  5. Wendy’s Saatchi & Saatchi / New York, NY 7.82 308.2 6.77 90 7.43 65.5  
  6. Taco Bell / Yum! Brands Draftfcb / Chicago, IL 6.05 250.4 6.43 90 7.06 62.1  
  7. KFC / Yum! Brands Draftfcb / Chicago, IL 5.14 311 6.33 94 6.78 59.5  
  8. Pizza Hut / Yum! Brands BBDO / New York, NY 5.1 240.3 6.93 97 7.21 65  
  9. Dunkin’ Donuts Hill Holiday / Boston, MA 4.98 106.9 7.52 83 7.6 68.1  
  10. Applebee’s McCann Erickson / New York, NY 4.49 172.4 6.8 89 7.06 62.1  
PREV CATEGORY NEXT CATEGORY Sources: Technomic, Chicago/Nielsen Monitor-Plus (excludes online)/EquiTrend:QxFxPI=E (see Methodology)
Dunkin' Donuts: Dunkin' Brands is owned by a consortium of equity firms.

Retail: Best Buy is a leading mobile-phone retailer—isn't that enough? Apparently not. Last month, the big-box retailer acquired 50% of The Carphone Warehouse, which has 2,400 stores in nine European countries. The cost: $2.1 billion.

Travel: Airlines ranked last in customer satisfaction in a recent consumer survey. Combine that with the challenge of rising fuel prices and airline marketers face big challenges in 2008.

Beer, Wine & Liquor: Yellow Tail spent about $13 million on its "Tails you win" campaign. The effort helped grow the brand by yet another million cases in 2007. Having already made wine more approachable, the Australian import has now entered the sparkling wine segment.

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