Consumer Interest No.1 McDonald's... Favorability Goes to 'Subway'

Lotteria, Burger King, Mom's Touch in Order
Subway Ranks First in Favorability
"Big 3 Still Nationally Loved in High Inflation Era"

In 2023, the hamburger brand that received the most consumer attention in South Korea was the traditional leader, McDonald's. The brand with the highest consumer favorability was Subway.

On the 5th, data and big data research agency Data & Research announced that it analyzed the level of interest (amount of information) for six major domestic hamburger brands from January to December of last year, revealing the ranking as ▲McDonald's ▲Lotteria ▲Burger King ▲Mom's Touch ▲KFC ▲Subway.

The survey was conducted across 12 channels and 230,000 sites, including news, communities, blogs, cafes, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, KakaoStory, Knowledge iN, companies/organizations, and government/public sectors. The brands surveyed were limited to hamburger brands with over 100,000 pieces of information during the analysis period.

Among them, McDonald's recorded 610,635 pieces of information, ranking first in consumer interest among domestic hamburger brands. Lotteria ranked second with 446,941 posts. Lotteria showed an 8.69% increase in information volume compared to the previous year (411,208 posts), marking the highest growth rate in interest among the six brands. Burger King ranked third with 393,685 posts from January to December last year. Fourth place was Mom's Touch with 218,795 posts. KFC was fifth with 199,121 posts. Sixth place Subway recorded 110,415 posts. Besides Lotteria, Subway was the only brand among those surveyed to see an increase in online postings over the past year.

This survey also analyzed the favorability of six major domestic hamburger brands. Subway ranked first in consumer favorability, recording a positive rate of 67.75% and a negative rate of 4.24% from January to December, resulting in a net favorability score of 63.50% (positive rate minus negative rate).

Lotteria ranked second with a positive rate of 63.87%, a negative rate of 5.62%, and a net favorability of 58.25%. Following its ranking in interest, Lotteria also secured second place in favorability, showing a positive trend in big data. Third place Mom's Touch showed a positive rate of 61.76%, a negative rate of 6.41%, and a net favorability of 55.35%.

McDonald's ranked fourth with a positive rate of 60.72%, a negative rate of 8.34%, and a net favorability of 52.38%. Burger King was fifth with a positive rate of 58.88%, a negative rate of 7.50%, and a net favorability of 51.39%. KFC was analyzed with an annual positive rate of 59.05%, a negative rate of 7.74%, and a net favorability of 51.31%.

The survey classified posts as positive if they contained keywords with positive nuances such as ‘good,’ ‘delicious,’ ‘success,’ and ‘praise,’ and as negative if they contained keywords with negative nuances such as ‘bad,’ ‘tasteless,’ ‘failure,’ and ‘annoying.’

A representative from Data & Research stated, “While the big three brands?McDonald's, Lotteria, and Burger King?have maintained their dominance for a long time, consumer interest overall slightly decreased compared to 2022. However, net favorability remains above 50%, indicating that these brands continue to enjoy national love even in an era of high inflation.”