Methods Fast food menus and nutritional quality - Fast Food FACTS

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YouTube is a website that enables users to view, upload, and share videos. The fast food restaurants in our analysis have created customized channels on YouTube with playlists of videos available for viewing. While anyone can watch the videos without registering, registered users can “subscribe” to a channel and receive alerts anytime a new video is posted. YouTube accounted for nearly 40% of the 33.2 billion videos watched online during December 2009. 46 Social media data collection. Because social media are so new, and marketing techniques employing them are still evolving, it is difficult to procure data to measure exposure and impact. Among advertisers that use social media, there is no clear consensus on the key metrics to use. Because user information is kept private, none of the sites provide demographic information about followers of a particular brand’s page. Similarly, comScore does not provide demographic information for any of their measurements at the page level. We identified and tracked fast food restaurant pages on each of the three social media sites over a 29-week period from December 22, 2009 to July 30, 2010, capturing information that is publicly available once a week. For Facebook, we tracked the number of likes for each fast food restaurant’s page(s). For Twitter, we tracked the number of followers of each brand’s Twitter page(s). And for YouTube, we recorded the following data: number of subscribers, and upload views (number of views for all uploaded videos). We also conducted content analyses of each media. For Facebook and Twitter, we identified the specific products (special menus, meals, time of day, individual menu items, and lines of items) featured and links included in posts that directed users to external websites. We also identified all value promotions (including coupons, special limited-time price promotions, and any other posts that mentioned specific prices). Finally, we identified the engagement techniques employed by each media. For Facebook, these include tabs, photos, videos, polls, and profile pictures. For Twitter, these include contests specifically designed for Twitter users and customer service interactions. The Facebook content analysis was performed using screen captures saved weekly while gathering the data for brand fans. We looked at pages from January through March 2010 that had at least 100,000 fans. For Twitter, we created a program to download the most recent 3,000 tweets written by each fast food restaurant from Twitter’s servers to analyze the content of tweets published in 2009. We limited our analysis to accounts that had a minimum of 1,000 followers. We recovered all 2009 tweets for all restaurants, with the exception of Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks (the @ Starbucks account) due to their exceptionally high volume. We downloaded a sizable sample of over 1,941 of Starbucks’ 2009 tweets (59% of the total 2009); however, we could only download Dunkin’ Donuts’ tweets from February 2010, so its tweets are excluded from the content analysis. Wendy’s @ WendysRestaurant is also excluded from the content analysis because the program was unable to retrieve the restaurant’s 2009 tweets. To perform the content analysis for YouTube, we used the coding manual for the TV content analysis. We limited our analysis to all videos uploaded to YouTube by the fast food restaurants in 2009 that had a minimum of 5,000 views, Furthermore, we measured the frequency with which restaurants engaged with individuals through social media by presenting the frequency of posts on Facebook from January 1, 2010 through March 31, 2010; the number of tweets per week in 2009; and the number of videos posted on YouTube in 2009. Social media footprint. We also present a footprint of the social media activities of each restaurant, incorporating the quantitative data collected. We created a bubble chart that shows the relative size of each company’s installed and engaged fan base as determined by the number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and 2009 upload views on YouTube. Mobile marketing Methods We examined three methods used by restaurants to target cell phone users: banner ads on mobile web sites, smartphone applications, and text messaging. ■ Mobile banner ads: These advertisements appear at the top or bottom of third-party mobile web pages. Similar to internet banner ads, they are graphic display ads (commonly accepted file types are GIF, Animated GIF, JPEG, and PNG) that click through to a page designated by the advertiser. Companies typically maintain mobile websites that can be accessed through cell phones and that are separate from their internet websites. ■ Smartphone applications: These are operating systemspecific (e.g. iPhone and Android) applications that may be downloaded to mobile phones. They act as stand-alone programs and may perform a number of different functions, including games, store locators, and ordering platforms. ■ Text messaging: The Short Message Service (SMS) enables brief messages (160 characters or fewer) to be sent between mobile phones and other SMS-enabled devices. While the technology is primarily used to transmit messages between private parties, it can also be used to communicate with companies to make payments, make inquiries from a service provider such as Google or Fandango, and, most significantly for our purposes, to place orders with a restaurant. Mobile banner ads. We purchased mobile advertising data from comScore. The firm’s Ad Metrix Mobile product tracks banner ads on more than 1,000 mobile URLs. These sites include all sites linked to a mobile service provider’s portal (effectively a carrier-specific home page for accessing the mobile internet). The company automatically collects Fast Food FACTS 30
data from these defined portal websites every six hours, or approximately 120 times per month. Copies of the advertisements are captured and stored as a static image and classified four ways: by the company that owns the product being advertised, the division responsible for the product being advertised, the brand name of the product being advertised, and the product itself. Another product from comScore, Mobile Metrix, determines the top mobile websites as ranked by number of unique visitors. In order to determine this number, comScore meters the phones of a panel of participants aged 18 years and older and automatically captures their activity. The observed population of metered phones only includes smartphone data from comScore panelists using RIM, Microsoft, Palm, Google, and Symbian platforms. Smartphones are cell phones that run operating systems and offer advanced capabilities with PC-like functionality such as the iPhone. In our analysis, we used a comScore measure from Ad Metrix to describe mobile ad frequency: ad index. Ad index indicates relative share of presence of the advertisement on a given mobile website. This is established by comparing the frequency with which a particular advertisement appears on a mobile website as compared to all other advertisements on the same website. The ad index therefore acts as a benchmark: Any number above 100 indicates a greater observed presence than expected, while a number below 100 indicates the converse. We also used comScore’s Ad Metrix Mobile to identify fast food mobile website banner ads, the sites that they were advertised on, and the ad index for each restaurant advertiser on each website. We then removed duplicate ads with the same content but formatted as a different size and coded all unique banner ads using the coding manual developed for internet banner ads. Smartphone applications. We purchased an iPhone which we used to download all applications available that were produced by the twelve restaurants in our analysis. Content analysis of these applications documents the features and capabilities of each, including ordering ability, store locators, nutrition information, games, and special offers. The bi-annual iTunes Application Tracker report from comScore details the most popular, as defined by number downloaded, applications available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The Tracker collects data for more than 5,000 iTunes applications through comScore's panel of two million persons. The product details application-specific information, such as projected total population and projected demographics of application users. For fast food restaurant applications with enough activity, comScore collects data from its online panel of iTunes users to measure the population of 12- to 17-year-olds who have these applications installed on their phones. ComScore has not included individuals who have downloaded applications and Methods then deleted them when calculating the number of projected users; this metric represents the installed user base only. We also report the percentage of all application users who are 12-17 years. Text messaging. Text messaging is used by fast food restaurants as both an advertising medium and an ordering vehicle. In addition to using our iPhone to download applications, we also registered our phone number with fast food restaurants to receive text messages. We report which restaurants use text messaging as an ongoing part of their marketing efforts. We identified restaurants that allow individuals to place orders through text messaging. Some fast food restaurants allow people to send a text message to a short code with the body of the message containing the details of their order. Alongside our report of which restaurants use text messaging regularly to advertise, we also indicate which restaurants have added SMS to their roster of ordering options. To understand the ways in which teens access and use SMS services, we obtained data from comScore’s MobiLens product. Every month, the company surveys mobile subscribers, aged 13 years and older, to recall their mobile content consumption during the previous month. We use MobiLens to report the proportion of the teen population (13-17 years) who received SMS advertisements on their cell phones each month in 2009. We also report the proportion of the population who received SMS ads for food and for restaurants. Marketing inside restaurants We conducted a nationally representative audit of in-store marketing at the twelve fast food restaurants in our analysis to assess marketing messages at the point when consumers decide what menu items to purchase. The audit consisted of three main parts: 1) restaurant signs audit, which detailed menu items, messages and promotions on signs inside and outside the restaurants; 2) pricing analysis to appraise the cost of eight comparable items at each restaurant, and 3) sales practices audit to assess the default sides, drinks and sizes given when ordering a kids’ meal and a combo meal. We commissioned a market research firm to oversee and conduct the in-person restaurant audits. The research firm specializes in retail research conducted through a nationwide network of trained, experienced field personnel in major metropolitan areas. They maintain a comprehensive quality control program to ensure the collection of accurate data, which includes spot checking the original data and calculations, and restaurant rechecks when necessary. Field personnel audited signs and pricing in a representative sample of 1,050 fast food restaurants in 37 markets across the United States, including 100 different locations for each of the larger restaurants in our analysis (McDonald’s, Burger Fast Food FACTS 31
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Methods Fast food menus and nutritional quality - Fast Food FACTS

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