Fast food chains have spent the previous couple of years competing around value as economic pressures proceed to stoke uncertainty and uneasiness in consumers. But as lowered prices cut into already tight profit margins and casual chains proceed to make gains with value-minded diners, fast food marketers can have to maneuver beyond price-point value to drive sales and traffic.
“Value isn’t any longer nearly price,” wrote R.J. Hottovy, head of analytical research at location analytics platform Placer.ai, in a recent report. “In 2026, winning restaurants will pair aggressive pricing with innovation, limited-time offers, and cultural relevance to justify discretionary spending.”
An evaluation of recent earnings reports by fast food chains demonstrates how successful such multifaceted marketing strategies have been, while hinting at what’s coming down the pike this yr.
McDonald’s tries to go three-for-three
Fast-food leader McDonald’s saw comparable sales grow 5.7% in Q4 2025 and greater than 3% for the complete yr, per its latest earnings report. The chain in September rolled out an Extra Value Meals platform, but executives stressed that continued growth won’t depend on the menu category alone.
“As we glance to 2026, success will again depend on going three for 3: compelling value that brings customers within the door, breakthrough marketing that creates meaningful moments for our fans and menu innovation that gives great tasting food for our customers,” CEO Chris Kempczinski said on a call discussing the earnings.
McDonald’s called out cultural plays which were a renewed a part of its marketing playbook lately. The chain’s collaboration with “A Minecraft Movie” spanned greater than 100 markets and was its largest global campaign ever, while a vacation push themed across the Grinch saw McDonald’s sell nearly as many themed meals as its Minecraft effort and a 2024 collector cups promotion combined.
“Both record-setting programs show how uniquely positioned McDonald’s is to tap into culture at massive scale, reinforcing the facility of a One McDonald’s way of marketing and our ability to share creative excellence across the system,” Kempczinski said.
In addition to its movie-themed meal campaigns, McDonald’s drove engagement in digital and loyalty channels with its latest Monopoly game. The effort resulted in one in every of the chain’s largest digital customer acquisitions ever, and notched nearly 500 million games played. McDonald’s now has about 46 million 90-day lively users in its U.S. loyalty app.
“Our U.S. business had its strongest comp guest count gap to the nearing competitive set in Q4 in recent history, so I believe those are all signs of encouragement to us,” CFO Ian Borden said on the earnings call. “The key, though, is you’ve got got to get the three for 3. It’s not nearly value and affordability or about menu or about marketing individually. It’s the way you bring those together and leverage them to sort of get that holistic output.”
Burger King asks for feedback
Burger King within the U.S. continues to take a position in marketing, operations and remodeling as a part of its long-running Reclaim the Flame turnaround plan. The Restaurant Brands International chain saw U.S. comparable sales grow 2.6% in Q4 and 1.6% for the complete yr and claimed to outperform the burger QSR industry in nine of the last 12 quarters.
“Burger King executed compelling marketing, offered consistent value, improved operations, and continued to make progress on modern image, helping the brand once more outperform the burger QSR industry and reinforcing my confidence within the brand’s trajectory as macro pressures ease,” said RBI CEO Joshua Kobza on a call discussing the earnings.
In the best way that McDonald’s relied on Minecraft and the Grinch to drive sales, Burger King utilized a Q4 collaboration timed to the discharge of “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.” The activation drove strong guest engagement and boosted kids meals to their highest incidence level within the last ten years, and was the primary major move executed under Joel Yashinsky, who was appointed CMO of Burger King’s U.S. and Canada business in April.
“I believe that Joel and the marketing team did such a pleasant job on the entire elements of that: the IP, the products that they developed, the packaging, after which we executed it well on the restaurant,” Kobza said of the hassle. “But it delivered great results due to all of the underlying work that we’ve done within the business, and it really told us that I believe we are able to take this business to the subsequent level and really elevate the brand based on the work that we’ve done and the basics.”
Burger King was in a position to retain traffic after the SpongeBob promotion, growth the chain attributed to a value platform around $5 Duos and $7 Trios that offered consumers selection and consistency since its launch early in 2025.
“In a yr when there was significant noise across the industry around value, this dependable platform allowed us to focus our marketing behind Whopper-led innovation and family partnerships that attracted latest guests to the brand. Looking ahead, we are going to proceed executing this balanced strategy,” Kobza said.
Burger King has given consumers a phone number for chain president Tom Curtis.
Courtesy of Burger King
Burger King has iterated innovation around its flagship product in offers just like the Million Dollar Whopper contest and “Whopper By You” platform by relying on consumer input and its “Have It Your Way” ethos. That mindset continues in its latest campaign, launched Feb. 17, that permits guests to call or text Burger King President Tom Curtis with their thoughts and feedback. The executive will personally reply to as many day by day calls as possible, with the chain promising to review and reply to every message.
“There’s nothing like hearing from Guests firsthand, so I’m excited to have an excellent greater opportunity to have live open and honest conversations, ask questions, and see how we are able to create an excellent higher Burger King together,” Tom Curtis, president of Burger King U.S. and Canada, said in a press release.
Wendy’s plays catch up
While McDonald’s and Burger King were on the upswing to shut 2025, Wendy’s saw its fourth straight quarter of negative sales growth, with global systemwide sales down 8.3% in Q4 and down 3.5% for the complete yr. The rough earnings report was expected, with marketing spend down significantly within the quarter after the chain had front-loaded its ad spend at the highest of yr.
Coincidentally, the quarter looked even worse in comparison with the same-year period in 2024 that saw Wendy’s run its own successful collaboration with the SpongeBob franchise — a yr before Burger King’s effort — that helped the chain outpace the QSR burger category in traffic and dollar growth.
As a part of a Project Fresh strategic plan that launched in November, Wendy’s will look to revitalize its brand as the very best quality selection in QSR by engaging consumers in additional relevant, distinctive ways, CFO and interim CEO Ken Cook said on a call discussing the earnings.
Wendy’s accomplished a comprehensive consumer segmentation study and translated those consumer insights right into a framework that may inform priorities, the client experience and the way it communicates around its brand and value. The latest framework has informed its latest marketing and menu approach for 2026, Cook explained.
“We’re taking a balanced approach across core, innovation, and value offerings, supported by improved messaging that connects with customers in socially and culturally relevant ways. In addition, we’ve established a more disciplined programming structure to make sure a gentle stream of latest news that keeps the brand top of mind and supports higher customer frequency while providing restaurant teams adequate time to coach and execute with excellence,” the chief said.
Like its competitors, Wendy’s has strengthened its value offerings, with Biggie Deals that use a tiered pricing structure. In addition, the chain plans to optimize its marketing mix by allocating more spend in digital, social and streaming channels.
“We are increasing culturally relevant marketing in these channels, leveraging our consumer segmentation insights and latest data and analytics capabilities for more targeted messaging,” Cook said. “We’ve significantly increased our always-on social engagement, and that awareness will translate into traffic over time.”
Challengers go for nostalgia via TV
QSR market leaders are not the one campaigns to utilize cultural collaborations to drive engagement and sales. But challenger brands that don’t have the cachet to tug off family friendly, major movie promotions have increasingly relied on transgressive promoting and nostalgia for their very own campaigns.
CKE Restaurants brand Carl’s Jr. on Feb. 10 brought back pop-culture icon Paris Hilton for a campaign that continues to construct on the brand’s return to bikinis-and-burgers marketing that it had eschewed nearly a decade ago. After starring within the brand’s ads within the mid-2000s, Hilton last yr made a cameo in a campaign for the brand centered around Alix Earle, an entrepreneur and social media star that could be a Hiltonesque figure for Gen Z.
In the brand’s latest ad, two guys take their automobile to Paris’ Famous Starwash, a automobile wash operated by a handful of bikini-clad, electric-eyed Hilton clones. After the bogus intelligence-generated automobile wash sequence, the ad ends on the actual Hilton, who offers consumers a buy one, get one for $1 Famous Star burger deal.
“AI allow us to do something magical: we went back in time to one in every of promoting’s most iconic moments, then pulled the actual Paris Hilton through it into today,” said Kara Gasbarro, vp of creative and brand strategy at CKE Restaurants, in an announcement across the campaign. “It’s surreal and fun and expands creative possibilities. But here’s what matters: once you peel back the fun AI, you are left with real Paris, and an actual burger that tastes as incredible today because it did in 2004.”
The spot was created by agency Native Foreign in partnership with CKE’s in-house creative team. A 30-second spot is running across CTV and social, with content featuring Hilton running on TV in traditional channels. Two 15-second spots have greater than 10 million views combined on the brand’s YouTube channel at press time.
Jack within the Box can be reheating an old campaign to advertise a brand new offer. As a part of its seventy fifth anniversary, the California-based chain is bringing back its Hot Mess Burger with a series of one-day-only pop-ups throughout the month. To promote the menu item and its “tour,” the chain rolled out a 60-second ad that appears back at its mascot’s time as an ‘80s rock star.
The ‘80s persona originally appeared in a 2013 Super Bowl ad that ended with a joke a few woman who exposed herself at a rock concert becoming the mother of the mascot’s child. The latest ad features Jack Box looking back at memories of this era, featuring his time with a blonde groupie and their debaucherous time in hotels, limos and police stations. The spot is running across linear TV, connected TV, YouTube and social platforms including TikTok and Snap.
Carl’s Jr. and Jack within the Box utilizing a mixture of national and streaming TV follows a QSR industrywide trend of embracing targeted promoting on streaming to generate sales while remaining on national linear TV, especially around sports, for awareness.
“QSR brands are among the finest examples for the way advertisers can effectively utilize streaming to succeed in their intended audience, without abandoning the continued strength of linear reach,” said Tyler Bobin, director of name solutions at iSpot, in emailed comments. “Quick-serve brands have been in a position to leverage streaming to deliver locally specific messaging, test marketing concepts and artistic versioning, while also getting a transparent line of sight to measure whether these items are actually working and the right way to make worthwhile optimizations to their media plan.”
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