Survey: Burger King Not Yet a Hit with Parents

The largest quick-service burger brands have been working to tweak menus of late, especially surrounding kids’ offerings, with Burger King introducing its new BK Crown meal and promotions, and McDonald’s and Wendy’s adding more healthful items to kids’ meals.

According to recent data from market research firm YouGov BrandIndex, Burger King has increased its appeal to parents, but still has far to go before catching up with its main competitors, McDonald’s and Wendy’s.

New York-based BrandIndex’s latest study of proprietary “Impression Scores” among parents with children living at home found that Burger King’s average score over the three-week period from Nov. 5 to Nov. 25 — just as it introduced the rebranded BK Crown kids’ meal — increased. But not enough to catch up to its burger competitors, as well as brands that top the list with parents, like Subway.

BrandIndex calculates the Impression Score by polling more than 5,000 consumers each weekday and asking them, “Do you have a general positive or negative feeling about this brand?” The negative responses are subtracted from positive ones, giving each brand a score between negative 100 and positive 100. In this study, answers were collected from parents with children living at home and who had visited a quick-service restaurant in the past three months.

The top five performing quick-service restaurant chains were Subway, Wendy’s, Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, and McDonald’s. Burger King was No. 10.

“Burger King isn’t failing with parents, but its general perceptions with consumers tell us they’re still behind McDonald’s and Wendy’s,” senior vice president Ted Marzilli said. “It’s up against some stiff competition and other heavy advertisers.”

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