Fast Food, Casual Dining, and Specialty Brands: A Classroom Example of Secondary Data
Many of our students enjoy eating out, especially at fast food restaurants. Therefore, you can expec YouGov’s Best Bites 2026: U.S. Restaurant Brand Rankings to be of interest. it offers a useful classroom example of secondary research because it gives students access to data that has already been collected, analyzed, and published by an outside research organization. Rather than asking students to design and field their own survey, instructors can use this report to show how marketing managers use existing research to understand customers, competitors, and market opportunities. The report ranks restaurant brands across fast food, casual dining, and specialty dining, using measures such as consideration, quality, value, service, and dining experience. It also profiles weekly fast food diners and shows how behavior varies by age and gender.
The report is especially strong for teaching the difference between raw data and marketing insight. For example, the data show that two-thirds of U.S. consumers purchase food or drinks from fast food restaurants at least once a month, and 30 percent are weekly fast food diners. But the managerial insight is broader: fast food is not an occasional “emergency” purchase for many consumers; it is a regular part of their dining routine. That has implications for segmentation, positioning, menu strategy, pricing, promotion, and channel decisions.
The report also helps students see how secondary research can reveal both brand-level competition and category-specific consumer perceptions. McDonald’s leads fast food consideration, Olive Garden leads casual dining consideration, and Starbucks narrowly leads Dunkin’ in specialty dining consideration. Yet leadership changes when the question shifts from consideration to quality, value, service, or best-tasting menu item. That makes the report a good teaching tool for showing why marketers should not rely on a single metric when evaluating brand performance.
Relevant Chapters in Essentials of Marketing
Chapter 7: Improving Decisions with Marketing Information is the most direct fit. The textbook explains that secondary data are information that has already been collected or published, and that marketers should often look for relevant secondary information before rushing to collect primary data. This YouGov report is exactly that kind of source: it gives students a ready-made dataset for analyzing restaurant brands, customers, competitors, and brand perceptions.
Chapter 4: Focusing Marketing Strategy with Segmentation and Positioning also connects well. The report breaks out fast food behavior by age and gender, allowing students to examine how different segments vary in spending, ordering methods, brand consideration, and desired restaurant features. For example, weekly fast food diners skew male, younger, more educated, and middle income compared with the general U.S. population.
Chapter 5: Final Consumers and Their Buying Behavior is relevant because restaurant choices are often routine, low-involvement decisions shaped by habits, convenience, price, brand familiarity, and situational needs. The report’s findings on value menus, clean dining areas, promotions, customization, delivery, drive-through, and dine-in behavior can be used to discuss what drives consumer choice in frequently purchased services.
Chapter 8: Elements of Product Planning for Goods and Services fits because the report asks consumers which restaurants are best for specific food categories, such as burgers, sandwiches, tacos, chicken, pizza, and fries. Students can discuss how menu items become part of a brand’s product assortment and how a brand can own a particular attribute or category in consumers’ minds.
Chapter 16: Publicity, Earned Media, Owned Media, and Social Media could be used to extend the discussion into brand health and reputation. The report includes brand tracking concepts such as brand awareness, word of mouth, loyalty, and customer sentiment, which connect to how restaurant brands build and maintain relevance in crowded categories.
7 interesting facts from this research report
- Two in three U.S. consumers buy fast food at least once a month, either dine-in or takeout.
- Thirty percent of Americans are weekly fast food diners.
- McDonald’s is the most considered fast food brand in the report, with 39.6 percent consideration, followed by Chick-fil-A at 35.5 percent and Wendy’s at 33.2 percent.
- Among weekly fast food diners, the top feature that would make them more likely to visit a fast food restaurant is a value or discount menu, selected by 66 percent. A clean dining area follows at 53 percent.
- Five Guys is rated the best-tasting burger brand at 15.5 percent, just ahead of Burger King at 15.0 percent.
- McDonald’s dominates the fries category, with 39.2 percent rating it best for fries; Five Guys is second at 9.0 percent.
- In casual dining, Olive Garden is the most considered brand at 30.7 percent, while Texas Roadhouse ranks highest for quality with a net score of 35.0.
Ideas for Using the Report for an In-Class Activity
1. “What Would You Do With This Data?” (Chapter 7)
Give students 2–3 pages from the report, such as the weekly fast food diner profile and the chart showing features that make diners more likely to visit. Ask them to imagine they are marketing managers for a regional fast food chain. Their task is to identify three useful findings, two unanswered questions, and one primary research project they would conduct next.
This works well because it highlights the strengths and limits of secondary research. Students should see that the report provides useful direction — for example, the importance of value menus, cleanliness, mobile ordering, and customization — but it may not answer every question a specific company has. The follow-up discussion can focus on when secondary data are “good enough” and when a firm needs its own surveys, interviews, focus groups, or experiments.
2. “Segment Smackdown: Who Should the Brand Target?” (Chapter 4)
Assign teams different demographic segments from the report, such as weekly fast food diners by age group or gender. Each team has to argue that its segment is the best target market for a new fast food campaign. Students should support their case using the report’s data on frequency, spending, ordering method, and desired restaurant features.
To make it more engaging, have the class vote on which team made the strongest data-driven case. Then ask students whether “largest segment” always means “best segment.” This can lead into a useful discussion of segment size, growth potential, accessibility, competitive intensity, and fit with the company’s strengths.
3. “Own the Menu Item” (Chapter 4 and/or 8)
Show students the pages where consumers rank which brands do particular foods best — burgers, fries, tacos, chicken, sandwiches, coffee, ice cream, and similar categories. Ask each team to pick one restaurant brand and one food category it wants to “own” in consumers’ minds. Their challenge is to recommend a product strategy that could strengthen that association.
An interesting question arises when we consider what brand already owns a category and how (or whether) a competitor might try to move in on that. For example, should a Wendy’s team try to help the brand compete more directly with McDonald’s on fries or how should a team Dunkin’ challenge Starbucks on coffee (students who read the Chapter 7 opening case might have some ideas here). Students should consider product quality, line extensions, packaging, naming, bundling, service experience, and branding. This activity connects well to product positioning because students must consider how a menu item becomes a brand asset rather than just something the restaurant sells.
4. “Promotion Brief: Turn a Ranking Into a Campaign” (Chapters 13 and/or 16)
Ask students to choose one fact from the report that a restaurant brand might want to use in promotion. For instance, a brand ranked highly for quality, value, service, or a specific menu item. Students then create a short campaign brief: target audience, key message, media choice, and one sample social post or ad headline.
The twist is that students must also discuss whether the claim is strong enough to use persuasively. Is “ranked highly for consideration” as powerful as “best-tasting fries”? Would consumers care about quality scores, or would a taste-based claim be more compelling? This opens a good discussion about how marketers transform research into advertising claims, earned media angles, influencer content, or social media storytelling.
ChatGPT generated a first draft and an initial set of ideas for this blog post.