CorpComms Magazine

Fast food restaurant-goers exposed to social media are 2.7 times more likely to spend more money and buy more food items than those who have not been exposed, a new survey has revealed.

The sales impact was greater when social media content, such as a brand's Facebook page or an online review, was combined with other types of media, such as PR or television advertising.

But social media also had the biggest impact on brand perception out of 20 separate marketing channels, the Integrated Social Media Sales Impact study of restaurant consumers, conducted by Ogilvy and ChatThreads, found.

Yet social media was not viewed as obtrusive by those surveyed. Only 24 per cent reported exposure compared to a 69 per cent exposure level for television.

The survey found that those exposed to social media and PR increased their weekly expenditure on fast food by 17 per cent, although those only exposed to social media were likely to increase their fast food spending between 1.5 and seven times.

Those consumers who were only exposed to television advertising were three times more likely to spend more at the relevant fast food outlet.

Irfan Kamal, senior vice president at Ogilvy, said: 'Much of the work to date has looked at direct channel impacts; for example, do direct clicks from a social media site result in sales? This study of restaurant consumers attempts to understand the more complex factors that lead to consumer purchase and perception changes.

'We found that in the real world, social content exposure - by itself and more broadly when combined with other types of media exposure such as out-of-home, PR or TV ads - is linked with 2-7x higher likelihood of consumption and actual spend increases.'

Just over 400 consumers reported their real time exposure to 21 different 'brand touch points' for five fast food outlets, comprising KFC, McDonald's, Subway, Taco Bell and Wendy's.

For seven days, the consumers reported via text message or a special web browser their exposure to touch points. They were also surveyed before and after the seven day period.

The experiment was repeated twice between 20 January and 6 May, and the consumers reported a total of 5,623 touch points.

For example, one consumer reported seeing a McDonald's bill board advert 'with smiling face that spells out outrageous values' while another recorded that a friend had updated their Facebook status to report they had 'been out at KFC and enjoyed a delicious meal'.

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