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Profit over perception

Posted in General January 30th, 2007 by Stuart Aitken

In our latest analysis in conjunction with YouGov’s BrandIndex we compare McDonalds recent financial results to the perception of the brand.

Last week McDonalds reported record sales of £609 million in the fourth quarter – doubling last year’s figures. The results were due in part to a strong showing in Europe. Given the current high profile of the obesity debate, the results came as something of a surprise, but hey do appear to be a vindication of McDonalds growing commitment to providing more healthy options in its restaurants. The brand has chosen not to follow Burger King for instance who launched the peculiar “Mantham” ad in November, featuring men swearing they won’t touch “chick food” while singing a song called “I am man”. The ad ends with the strapline: “The Double Whopper. Man that’s a lot of meat.”

Despite McDonalds’ recent success however there are some very serious question marks over whether the fast food chain will be able to maintain this level of sales should Ofcom go ahead with its plans to ban junk food advertising to children. If this is the case public perception will become far more important to the brand – not something that will have the McDonalds executives smiling if the latest BrandIndex figures from YouGov are to be believed.

Currently sitting on a score of -49, McDonalds has the lowest corporate reputation of all the brands featured in YouGov’s BrandIndex - hardly a huge surprise for a brand vilified by large sections of society. Having said this, it should not be ignored that there have been some improvements over the last three months - after all in early November the brand dropped to an almost unbelievable -62.

Buzz - the measure of whether people have heard positive or negative things about a brand - has also seen some movement over the last three months. At its lowest ebb McDonalds dropped to a shocking -21.4 on 5th November. At times however the brand rose to within touching distance of respectability. On 2nd October it reached -9.1. By the end of the reporting period – 18th January – the fast food chain had settled on a score of -13.1.

While these figures are by no means impressive they are at least a gesture in the right direction. There is still a serious battle ahead if McDonalds is to maintain its current strong performance.