A recent study found Domino’s to be America’s most searched pizza chain on the internet, and subsequently the popular favorite in their rivalry with Papa John’s. The study used data from Google to determine which pizza chain, and other fast food chains are the most popular in every state in the US.
The company Shane Co. analyzed Google Trends Data to locate the most popular brands in every state based on what the residents are searching for using Google. The data is from the past 12 months, and uses a scale from 0-100.
The four major brands pitted against each other were:
- Pepsi Vs Coke
- Domino’s Vs Papa John’s
- Dunkin’ Donuts
- McDonald’s Vs Burger King
Winners of Fast Food Rivalries
The results of the major rivalries contain some surprising, and not so surprising truths.
Domino’s smashed the competition as a clear favorite in 47 states, while Papa John’s is only preferred in four states. Of those four states, Indiana…is the state where Papa Johns originated which makes sense from a loyalty perspective.
Then there’s Starbucks which is preferred in 42 states over Dunkin’ which is only more popular in 9 states. And of those nine, they’re mostly in the northeast-located states like, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.
The competition between Coke and Pepsi remains fierce as the two were pretty neck and neck…Coke came in at 29 states, and Pepsi at 22.
And of course, the McDonald’s and Burger King rivalry resulted in McDonald’s taking 31 states to Burger King’s paltry 20. Burger King is in the middle of a $400 million reboot plan in the hopes of narrowing the gap between the two chains popularity.
Shane Co. said on the study: To shed light on some of the most iconic brand rivalries, we began by curating a list of 14 standout brand face-offs. Using Google Trends, we pitted each brand against its rival to gauge which one has earned more search interest in each state. The search volume for each brand is scaled between 0 and 100, with higher numbers indicating greater search interest.
The data was curated from the period between August 2022 to August 2023. The scale from 0-100 indicates a higher score as having a higher search volume, and hence greater interest for brands with high numbers.
Studies are great ways to guage the competition among fast food chains. In fact many conduct annual studies to determine various ways to meet customers evolving needs, and move forward based off those results.
