STATS: McDonald’s Served Over 295 Million Online Display Ads in March, According to comScore Ad Metrix

Ed: ROI. Comparing % of dollars spent by the industry to % of site views for the industry. 

McDonald’s Served Over 295 Million Online Display Ads in March, According to comScore Ad Metrix

McDonald’s Ranks as Heaviest U.S. Online Display Advertiser among Quick Serve Restaurants

– comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study based on data from the comScore Ad Metrix service that analyzes online display advertising by quick-serve restaurants (QSRs) in March 2008, revealing that McDonald’s ranked as the top online display advertiser in the United States with more than 295 million ads delivered during the month...
McDonald’s Captures 34 Percent Share of Voice among Top 10 QSR Advertisers
McDonald’s delivered more than 295 million display ad views (34 percent share of voice) in March, reaching 52 million Internet users an average of 5.7 times during the month.  Quizno’s ranked second with 11.1 percent share of voice, followed by KFC (9.6 percent) and Papa John’s (9.3 percent).

Top QSR Advertisers* by Total Display Ad Views March 2008 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix
Advertiser	Total Display Ad Views (000)	Share of Advertising Voice*	Ad-Exposed Unique Visitors (000)	Average Frequency
McDonald's	295,884	33.6%	51,897	5.7
Quiznos.com	98,041	11.1%	16,390	6.0
KFC.com	84,974	9.6%	12,620	6.7
PapaJohns.com	82,298	9.3%	17,115	4.8
Subway	78,150	8.9%	15,478	5.0
Dunkin' Brands, Inc.	71,713	8.1%	23,240	3.1
PizzaHut.com	60,327	6.8%	15,366	3.9
SonicDriveIn.com	45,064	5.1%	7,070	6.4
Wendy’s International	43,344	4.9%	11,280	3.8
Burger King	21,493	2.4%	3,494	6.2

*Excludes QSRs where beverages are the primary menu item

**Share of advertising voice among Top 10 online advertisers in the category

 

Pizza Hut’s Share of Site Visits Outpaces Online Advertising

To provide some dimension to the share of voice ranking, the study also looked at the share of visits to the Web sites of each of the top 10 restaurant companies to see if there is any relationship with the share of voice.  It appears that there is little relation between the two metrics, since site traffic seems to be more heavily influenced by televised promotions and online ordering functionality at a few of the companies. For example, PizzaHut.com, whose online advertisements promote online ordering for home delivery or in-store pick up, has a disproportionately high share of site traffic (23.3 percent) relative to its share of online advertising voice (6.8 percent).

 

Top QSR Advertisers: Share of Voice Vs. Share of Traffic March 2008 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Ad Metrix
Advertiser	Share of Online Advertising Voice*	Share of Site Visits	Index*
McDonald's	33.6%	15.5%	46
Quiznos.com	11.1%	3.3%	30
KFC.com	9.6%	8.1%	84
PapaJohns.com	9.3%	11.3%	122
Subway	8.9%	10.9%	122
Dunkin' Brands, Inc.	8.1%	17.6%	217
PizzaHut.com	6.8%	23.3%	343
SonicDriveIn.com	5.1%	2.3%	45
Wendy’s International	4.9%	3.6%	73
Burger King	2.4%	4.1%	171

*Index = share of site visits/share of advertising voice x 100; Index of 100 represents parity

 

A Smart Social Media Play From... Coca-Cola?

Coca-Cola quietly launched one of their first social media applications last weekend, a bookmarking widget for Facebook called CokeTag. (Coke Singapore also has a Facebook application out, promoting a tie-in with UEFA EURO 2008.) CokeTag is not only a smart play from the company, but also a fairly useful app as far as profile widgets go. The app allows users to create customizable Flash bookmark widgets linking to link collections on any topic they're passionate about.

Automakers Spending Less On Ads, Shifting More To The Web

Automotive advertising took a hit in the first quarter, down 16% year-over-year for domestic automakers and down 7.4% for foreign cars. The upside: The money that remains -- $13.1 billion in 2007 -- is quickly shifting online. EMarketer predicts the automakers will spend $2.98 billion online in 2008, a 21.5% increase from 2007. By 2012, eMarketer says the automakers will be spending $5.6 billion online.

This shift is an obvious one, given the Web has supplanted print as the primary source of information for new car buyers. GM said it would shift half of its total ad spend to online by 2011.

Related: 
CBS Interactive Gets $2 Million Ad Buy From GM (CBS)