The fast-food industry was ranked sixth out of 15 industries in the MBLM Brand Intimacy 2020 report.
With brands increasingly struggling to connect with consumers during the crisis, brand intimacy has become an important metric. While the research was originally conducted before the pandemic, it was augmented with social listening around the brands during the week of June.
Customers ranked the Seattle-headquartered Starbucks as the most intimate brand, and the connection remained secure even during the pandemic. Despite this positive sentiment, the pandemic-induced lockdowns led to a revenue loss of $3.2 billion during its fiscal third quarter.
Other fast-food brands that did well on the intimacy list were Chick-fil-A, McDonald's, Dunkin’, Subway and Wendy’s. McDonald's, which was ranked no.3 on the list, saw it public perception shift a bit during the pandemic with people seeing it as caring more about profits than employees.
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