Data shows breakfast has potential for McDonald's and competitors

Ted MarzilliCEO YouGov Direct
April 08, 2015, 2:39 PM GMT+0

New consumer data lends support to McDonald’s' decision to test serving breakfast all day for a possible rollout, and may even be an idea worth copying by other chains, according to YouGov BrandIndex, the only daily brand consumer perception research service.

42% of frequent breakfast eaters – defined as all adults over the age of 18 who eat a fast food breakfast from once a month up to two times a day – would consider purchasing from McDonald’s the next time they are looking to eat. That’s impressive and good enough for second place behind Subway at 48%.

After Subway and McDonald’s, the next highest major restaurant chains ranked for Purchase Consideration among this group included Wendy’s (39%), Chick-fil-A and Burger King (30%), followed by Taco Bell at 29%.

McDonald’s has also seen the biggest improvement on customer satisfaction among frequent breakfast diners over the past 90 days. The brand has boosted its Satisfaction scores approximately seven percentage points from 15 to 22, on a scale from -100 to 100, with zero being neutral.

YouGov also looked at comparison data from a soon-to-be-launched companion product to BrandIndex, YouGov Profiles, which continually captures responses on approximately 100,000 different data points across 150,000 members of the YouGov panel.

What distinguishes consumers who eat out at least once a month for breakfast from consumers who eat fast food in general at least once per month? Some of the key points of differentiation suggest that breakfast diners are more health conscious: 38% of regular breakfast diners say they are concerned about calories vs. 34% of regular fast food diners in general. Regular breakfast diners also report that they are more likely to cook from scratch at home – 17% say they almost always cook from scratch vs. 14% of regular fast food eaters. That data might suggest an opportunity for restaurant chains who are viewed to be healthier options than the rest of the pack.

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