News

Chick-fil-A, Dunkin' wrestle customers' hearts from Starbucks

August 15, 2019

Move over Starbucks, Americans now say a chicken has their heart according to the largest brand intimacy study that found Chick-fil-A is ranks first for customer "love," followed by Dunkin' and then at No. 3, Starbucks, which had been first the last two years in the same research. 

Not only that, but fast food, like Chick-fil-A, in general scored pretty well for brand intimacy, ranking sixth among 15 industries tested for customers' emotional brand connection. Those are some of the top findings of MBLM's Brand Intimacy 2019 Study measuring the bonds Americans form with retail brands. 

Other top performers in the fast food category after No. 3 Starbucks, were:
    4. McDonald's
    5. Taco Bell
    6. Subway
    7. Wendy's
    8. Burger King 
    9. Chipotle 
   10.KFC

Chick-fil-A also showed prominence among all retail sectors studied, ranking tenth among all the brands across industries, according to a news release about the research. Not only that, the chicken-centered brand blew the other brands out of the water when it came to its revenue growth rate of 15% annually from 2010 to 2018. This compares to the fast food industry as a whole, which grew just 3.4%, according to research cited from Barron's. 

The brand's overall outstanding performance in the brand intimacy research is consistent with overall study conclusions that showed the top American brands strongly outperformed the top Fortune 500 brands and S&P indices in both revenue and profit over the past 10 years.

"Chick-fil-A has gradually risen to the top of the fast food industry in our annual study," MBLM Managing Partner Mario Natarelli, said in a news release about the study. "The brand is able to connect with a wide range of customers and we expect it to continue to perform well in years to come. Others in the industry can learn from the leader in creating more robust, stronger connections with their patrons."

Additional noteworthy fast food findings include:

• Fast food outperformed the cross-industry Brand Intimacy Quotient (33.2 for fast food vs. 31).
• Top intimate brands drove home the idea of indulgence, including pampering and gratification.
• Chick-fil-A was tops in fast food for indulgence. 
• Chick-fil-A was tops for those earning under $100,000. 
• McDonald's was tops for those earning over $100,000. 
• Dunkin' and McDonald's rose in the rankings this year. 
• Starbucks and Chipotle dropped in the rankings this year. 

Chick-fil-A's prominence in brand intimacy continued in this year's research, according to its conclusions, which show it actually improved in all areas of measurement, including what researchers deem the most advanced stage when customers and brand "are inexorably linked and co-identified."

The brand even is reported to have hugely improved its performance around what MBLM calls "price resilience," with 26.7% of Chick-fil-A customers saying they would "be willing to pay 20% more for the brand's products."

The study was performed with Praxis Research Partners online with 6,200 consumers in the U.S. (3,000), Mexico (2,000), and the United Arab Emirates (1,200) who were 18 to 64 and earned $35,000 or more annually.