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Fast Food Advertising on Instagram: A Retrospective Conceptual Content Analysis

AP Research

30 April 2024

Word Count: 4,702

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Abstract

The obesity crisis is continuing to worsen in the United States, leading to disastrous

consequences. One contributor to this crisis is fast food consumption. In addition, advertising via

social media has been found to prompt consumption of food products by creating brand trust and

purchase intent, exacerbating the epidemic. Because youth are particularly at risk for developing

diet-related diseases, research is needed into how food products are marketed to this population.

No study has focused solely on how fast food companies market their products on Instagram, a

platform intensively used by youth, leading to the research question “How do fast food

companies market their products on Instagram through brand accounts?” Five fast food

companies were selected based on leading 2022 systemwide sales, and posts made on the

company’s Instagram account between July 1st, 2023 and December 31st, 2023 were collected

and coded in a Google Sheet. This study found that Branding Elements, Videos/GIFs, and

Branded Characters were the most frequently used social media marketing strategies by the

sample of fast food companies. The study also found that entertainment was moderately used in

many of the posts. While frequent social media activity doesn’t necessarily correlate with

systemwide sales, it is undoubtedly a powerful marketing tool. The success of fast food

marketing via social media can be studied, and strategies that have proven to be successful can

be applied to public health campaigns on social media to begin to counteract the obesity crisis.

Keywords: Fast food, Instagram, social media marketing

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Background

In 2021, the World Health Organization identified the increased intake of energy-dense

foods that are high in fat and sugars as a major contributor to the global uptake of obesity (WHO,

2021). The fast food industry is an area of particular concern in the United States. In two studies

published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranging from 2013 to 2016 and

2015 to 2018 respectively, it was found that 36.6 percent of adults and 36.3 percent of children

and adolescents consumed fast food on a given day (Fryar et al., 2018, p. 1; Fryar et al., 2020, p.

1).

The World Health Organization has suggested that the obesity crisis can be mitigated on a

societal level if the food industry “[restricts] marketing of foods high in sugars, salts, and fats,

especially those aimed at children and teenagers” (WHO, 2021). Fast food marketing across

various mediums has been studied intensively, though its dissemination via social media is

particularly alarming. According to a 2018 study by Dr. Monique Potvin Kent at the University

of Ottawa, children view an average of 1560 food advertisements per year on social media, and

adolescents view an average of 9828 per year (Potvin Kent et al., 2018, pp. 5-6). This exposure

to high volumes of advertisements is concerning because social media is widely used to make

purchase decisions. According to Dr. Andrew N. Mason at Juntendo University and colleagues,

since the COVID-19 pandemic began, consumers are increasingly using social media as a tool to

“compare product alternatives, evaluate product risks, and make purchases” (Mason et al., 2021,

p. 11). Therefore, viewing food advertisements on social media can prompt children and

adolescents to make purchase decisions regarding unhealthy food. Further, American consumers

of all ages are very engaged with brands on social media, as a 2019 study by Pasquale E. Rummo

from the University of North Carolina found that over 55.9 million people followed a sample of
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twenty-four food and beverage Instagram accounts. With the potential of fast food marketing via

social media to contribute to the obesity crisis by encouraging consumption, especially among

youth, it is important to understand the nature of such marketing.

Literature Review

The Effects of Fast Food Marketing on Social Media

Research on the effects of social media marketing (SMM) on consumer behavior can be

difficult to synthesize because of the many working definitions of SMM. However, there is a

general agreement that SMM increases consumer purchase intent. Dr. Jalal Rajeh Hanaysha from

Skyline University College defined fast food marketing on social media with the dimensions of

entertainment, interactivity, and informativeness. Through surveys of fast food consumers and

structural equation modeling, Dr. Hanaysha found that “[e]ntertainment is positively associated

with brand trust” and “[s]haring brand messages on the social media sites of fast-food

restaurants…can build brand trust” (Hanaysha, 2022, p. 7). The study further found that brand

trust is a “significant predictor” of consumer purchase decisions (Hanaysha, 2022, p. 6). The

notion that SMM by fast food companies creates brand trust and an intent to purchase fast food is

supported by a study by Dr. Nur Zulaikha Mohamed Sadom and colleagues at Manipal

International University. The researchers adapted an existing five-dimensional scale of SMM to

fast food marketing specifically. The five dimensions include entertainment, interaction, word of

mouth, trendiness, and customization (Sadom et al., 2023, p. 5). Through structural equation

modeling, the researchers found that social media marketing can positively influence a

consumer’s perception of a brand by increasing their trust that the brand will provide satisfactory

service, and the quality they perceive the brand to have (Sadom et al., 2023, p. 18). The
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researchers further used their findings to reason that “there is more tendency for the

consumer/individual to purchase fast-food products when they trust and acknowledge the

reputation of the fast-food brands” (Sadom et al., 2023, p. 18). As demonstrated by these studies,

social media marketing and the entertainment it offers increases the trust consumers place in a

brand, which increases their intent to purchase fast food.

Advertising by Brand Accounts

One facet of SMM is posts made on a brand account representing a company. Current

research into the nature of such posts made by energy dense and nutrient poor (EDNP) food and

beverage companies varies greatly in method and scope. In 2014, Dr. Becky Freeman and

colleagues from the University of Sydney conducted a content analysis on the SMM strategies in

the Facebook accounts of the twenty-seven most popular EDNP food and beverage companies in

Australia. When coding for the existence of strategies on each account, they found that every

page used branding elements in their posts, including logos, trademarks, and slogans (Freeman et

al., 2014, p. 5). A more recent content analysis on the posts made by the fifteen most popular

EDNP brand accounts on Instagram by Dr. Amy Jo Vassallo and colleagues from the George

Institute for Global Health coded for the frequency of each strategy to illustrate which were most

commonly used. The researchers found that branding, product imagery, special price promotions,

and partnerships were most common (Vassallo et al., 2018, p. 5). Despite the agreement between

these two studies regarding the prominence of strategies such as branding elements, a 2019 paper

found differing results. Dr. Marie A. Bragg from New York University and colleagues conducted

a content analysis with a sample of 2000 posts made between 2007 and 2016 by 200 different

EDNP brand accounts across five social media platforms. The researchers found that 74.5
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percent of posts included aspects unique to social media, which led them to the conclusion that

“companies may purposefully use more subtle and entertaining tools to engage consumers and

promote their brand, which may reduce consumers’ conscious awareness of the promotional

nature of posts” (Bragg et al., 2019). This conclusion is inconsistent with other studies, as it

suggests that brands would not use branding as frequently in their posts. The discrepancy among

the studies can perhaps be attributed to the fact that Bragg et al. focused on five different social

media platforms, while Freeman et al. and Vassallo et al. studies did not. There was some

agreement between Freeman et al. and Bragg et al., however, as they both found that brands

widely used the interactive features that social media offered (Freeman et al., 2014, pp. 6-7).

Research Question & Gap

In light of the discrepancy in methods and findings in studies on the posts of EDNP brand

accounts and the limited focus on the fast food industry, further research is needed. This study

will use the coding guide established by Freeman et al. and adapted to Instagram by Vassallo et

al. to code for the frequency of SMM strategies in the Instagram posts made by the leading five

fast food companies in the US based on 2022 system wide sales to answer the question: “How do

fast food companies market their products on Instagram through brand accounts?” This project

aims to create an understanding of which SMM strategies are most frequently used, and will

address a gap in the literature by addressing a major limitation in the study by Vassallo et al. The

researchers chose to code for only one primary strategy per post, which was determined using a

hierarchical coding guide where strategies were ranked based on how often the researchers

predicted they would appear. They explained that this coding guide was used to ensure reliability

among multiple coders, and that their results “present an underestimate of some marketing
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strategies...and the prevalence of the use of each strategy cannot be accurately reported”

(Vassallo et al., 2018, p. 8). This study will provide a more holistic picture of how often different

SMM strategies are used by the companies in the sample by coding for every strategy present in

a post, rather than only one, as my study is using one coder, so ensuring inter-coder reliability

with a hierarchical coding guide is unnecessary. My study is further addressing a gap by focusing

on fast food companies on Instagram alone.

Methods

Retrospective Conceptual Content Analysis

In response to the large presence of SMM by EDNP food and beverage companies, this

study aims to explore the most frequently used SMM strategies among fast food companies on

Instagram. For the purpose of this study, SMM will be defined as the collection of marketing

strategies used by fast food companies in social media posts. My chosen research method is a

retrospective conceptual content analysis. The Columbia Mailman School of Public Health has

explained that content analyses are useful in determining the presence of certain words, themes,

or concepts in a set of qualitative data (“Content Analysis”). This source further identified a use

of conducting a content analysis that suits my research question: identifying the communication

trends of an individual, group, or institution (“Content Analysis”). Therefore, a content analysis

will suit my purposes because I am aiming to identify the social media marketing strategies (the

communication trend being coded for) present in the Instagram posts (the set of qualitative data)

of the five leading fast food companies in the US (the groups being evaluated).

A conceptual content analysis is a type of content analysis used to identify concepts in a

text. Some conceptual content analyses code for the existence of a theme in a text (meaning no
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matter how many times it shows up, it is counted once), however I will be coding for frequency

because it best suits my project goal of illustrating the most frequently used SMM strategies. For

my research, this means coding for the frequency of different social media marketing strategies

in the set of Instagram posts I am evaluating.

I chose to do a retrospective conceptual content analysis because it allows me to evaluate

a greater volume of posts, and because it makes it so that I do not have to wait through the end of

a specific month to finish collecting my data. The posts collected were made between July 1st,

2023, and December 31st, 2023, and were collected in January 2024.

Selecting the Companies and Platform for Evaluation

Because this study is acting in response to the dangers of fast food consumption among

youth, the “leading five” companies will be selected based on their 2022 systemwide sales as

reported in Quick Service Magazine, rather than the amount of followers they have on Instagram.

This method of selection differs from Freeman et al. and Vassallo et al., however my research

differs from theirs in that I am not focused on companies with the largest Instagram presences,

rather I am focused on the Instagram pages of the most successful companies, whether they are

large or not. If I were aiming to create an overall picture of SMM by fast food companies, I

would choose their method of selection. However, I am primarily focused on how the most

successful fast food companies in the US use Instagram as a marketing tool. Further, my method

of selection has been used in research on television fast food advertisements by Amy M.

Bernhardt and colleagues, researchers for the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

University (Bernhardt et al., 2013, p. 2).

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Framework Analysis: Establishing the Coding Guide

This study will employ the coding guide established by Freeman et al. and adapted to

Instagram by Vassallo et al., with a unique goal of determining the most frequently used SMM

strategies used by fast food companies. In order to address a limitation of Vassallo et al., having a

code category entitled “No Clear Marketing Strategy” that was found to be prominent in fast

food companies, I enhanced my coding guide using similar studies by other researchers. I first

added the strategy addressed by Freeman et al. yet omitted by Vassallo et al., User Generated

Content (UGC), which refers to posts made by other social media users that are posted on the

brand page when there is no indication of a partnership. From social media marketing strategist

Kate Ginsberg, I adopted the categories of “Humor and Product,” a category for any post that

presents the brand in a humorous nature, and “People and Product,” a category for posts

containing themes of socialization (Ginsberg, 2015, p. 82). I renamed this category to

“Socialization.” Finally, from Bragg et al., I adopted the category of “Holiday Theme,” a

category for posts that have explicit holiday or seasonal themes, such as Christmas or Halloween.

The full coding guide and definitions can be seen below in Figure 1.

Code Category Definition

Corporate Social Statement of ethical or sustainable standpoint or initiative or charitable work

Responsibility or undertaken by brand
Philanthropy

Celebrities People with an entertainment profile or media profile, excluding athletes

Sportspeople Any person showing their athletic ability and/or sporting achievements, including
extreme and motorsports
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Third Party Characters Third-party cartoons or characters, including characters from films, books, TV, and
the internet

Branded Characters Any characters developed by the brand

Special Price Promotions Limited time offers, 2 for 1 deals, or other reduced price advertisements

Vouchers 'Offers" exclusively available to those who like the account, including print off
and/or electronic codes

Competitions Any contest involving participant entry, including minimal requirements, for
example, liking a post

Engagement Posts that prompt interaction/conversation (ex. "tag," "like," "comment")

Sponsorships or Any events the brand supports or brands/service partners, excluding charitable
Partnerships organizations (coded as corporate social responsibility, see previously)

Videos or GIFs Moving images

Links Link to an external page or additional content

Branding Elements Logos, colors, fonts, trademarks, or slogans

Product Imagery Pictures of the products sold or their ingredients, with no labels or branding elements
(Unbranded)

Humor/Meme A brand product is presented in a silly or humorous manner OR the post is humorous
in nature and in a format that can be/has been copied and spread rapidly by internet
users

Health Claims Specific reference that the product shown is a healthy choice or may improve
physical health

Socialization A brand product with a group of people. Portrays the theme of socializing.

User Generated Content Pictures/Videos made by other social media users that are tagged in the post (when
(UGC) no indication of sponsorship)

Holiday Theme Post contains themes of a holiday

No Clear Marketing Image not associated with any other marketing category
Strategy
Figure 1: Coding Guide

Data Collection and Coding

To address the major limitation of the study by Vassallo et al., every SMM strategy

detected in a post was coded for. The posts were first screenshotted or screen recorded and saved
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into a Google Drive folder titled with the name of the company, as seen in Figure 2. Each post

was assigned a number, with the first post being made in the six month time period being “#1,”

and labeled with the date it was posted. This can be seen in Figure 3. When data for a new

company was collected, the first post they made during the six month period was labeled with

“#1” rather than the number following the final post of the previous company in the six month

period. The coding guide was then inputted to Google Sheets, in which each post had one

column and each row represented one SMM strategy. Each box was filled in with a “0” or a “1,”

depending on if the post contained a certain marketing strategy or not. A snapshot of the setup on

Google Sheets can be found in Figure 4. The number of posts containing a certain strategy and

the frequency of each strategy was tracked on Google Sheets for each individual company, as

well as the sample of five companies all together. Bar graphs depicting the frequency of each

strategy for each individual company and the sample at large were then created using an online

tool by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Figure 2: Assorted Google Drive Folders

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Figure 3: Illustration of how posts were organized within each folder

Figure 4: Sample of the Google Sheet used to code

Ethicality & Approvals

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This research did not require any IRB approvals because no human subjects were

included in the research. In addition, all of the posts collected and analyzed were publicly

available, so there were no privacy concerns because private information or records were not

accessed.

Results

Rankings

As seen in Figure 5, the five highest-grossing fast food companies in the US in 2022

were: McDonald’s, Starbucks, Chick-Fil-A, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s (QSR). The amount of

Instagram followers ranged from 1.1 million (Wendy’s) at the lowest and 17.9 million

(Starbucks) at the highest. The amount of posts over the six-month period also varied greatly,

with 36 (McDonald’s) at the lowest, and 197 (Starbucks) at the highest. However, the number of

posts within the six-month period did not correlate with 2022 systemwide sales, as McDonald’s

had the lowest number of posts and the greatest 2022 systemwide sales. This sample differs

slightly from the sample of fast food companies used by Vassallo et al. and Freeman et al., as

they also included KFC, Subway, Burger King, Domino’s, and Pizza Hut. In addition, Freeman

et al. focused on the Australian social media handles of these companies, leaving a greater

variance in the data collected.

Figure 5: Company Rankings

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McDonald’s

According to Figure 6, across McDonald’s’ 36 posts from July 1st, 2023 to December

31st, 2023, Branding Elements were most common (61.1 percent of posts), followed by

Sponsorships (52.7 percent of posts) and Branded Characters (50.0 percent of posts). No posts

were found to have the categories of Corporate Social Responsibility or Philanthropy,

Sportspeople, Special Price Promotions, Vouchers, Health Claims, Socialization, UGC, or

Holiday Themes. In addition, no post was marked as containing “No Clear Marketing Strategy.”

In total, eleven different strategies were recorded. This company agrees with part of my

hypothesis by highlighting the prevalence of Branding Elements (61.1 percent of posts) and

Branded Characters (50.0 percent of posts), but disagrees in that only 11.1 percent of posts

included Product Imagery.

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Figure 6: McDonald’s SMM Strategy Frequency

Starbucks

Twelve strategies were recorded over Starbucks’ 197 posts, as seen in Figure 7. The most

common SMM strategies recorded were Branding Elements (94.9 percent of posts), Videos or

GIFs (47.2 percent of posts), and Holiday Themes (29.9 percent of posts). One post was found to

have “No Clear Marketing Strategy.” In addition, no posts were found to have the strategies of

Sportspeople, Third Party Characters, Branded Characters, Special Price Promotions, Vouchers,

or Competitions. This is the second company to partially support my hypothesis by

demonstrating a high prevalence of Branding Elements (94.9 percent of posts), but a very low

prevalence of Product Imagery (4.0 percent of posts).

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Figure 7: Starbucks SMM Strategy Frequency

Chick-Fil-A

As seen in Figure 8, only six strategies were found in Chick-Fil-A’s sample. The most

common were Branded Characters (80.0 percent of posts), Videos or GIFs (64.0 percent of

posts), and Links to External Pages (40.0 percent of posts). The other marketing strategies

recorded include Branding Elements, Product Imagery, and Socialization Themes. No posts were

recorded as having “No Clear Marketing Strategy.” This is the third company to partially agree

with my hypothesis by showing a high prevalence of Branded Characters (80.0 percent of posts),

and a low prevalence of Product Imagery (16.0 percent of posts).

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Figure 8: Chick-Fil-A SMM Strategy Frequency

Taco Bell

As seen in Figure 9, the most common SMM strategies in Taco Bell’s sample were

Branding Elements, Product Imagery, and UGC. Three posts were found to have “No Clear

Marketing Strategy.” Overall, ten SMM strategies were observed. This is the first company to

wholly agree with my hypothesis, as the two most frequently used SMM strategies were

Branding Elements (54.1 percent of posts) and Product Imagery (44.4 percent of posts).
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Figure 9: Taco Bell SMM Strategy Frequency

Wendy’s

In the Wendy’s sample, the three most common SMM strategies were Humor (73.4

percent of posts), Branded Characters (55.1 percent of posts), and Branding Elements (48.9

percent of posts), as seen in Figure 10. No posts contained the strategies of Corporate Social

Responsibility or Philanthropy, Celebrities, Sportspeople, Vouchers, Competitions, Links to

External Pages, Health Claims, Socialization Themes, and Holiday Themes. Three posts were

marked as showing “No Clear Marketing Strategy.” In total, there were ten different SMM

strategies present in the Wendy’s sample. This is the fourth company to partially agree with my

hypothesis. Though Branded Characters and Branding Elements showed up in 55.1 percent and

48.9 percent of posts respectively, the most commonly used SMM strategy was actually Humor.
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In addition, Product Imagery was not among the top three most prevalent strategies in the

Wendy’s sample.

Figure 10: Wendy’s SMM Strategy Frequency

Frequency of SMM Strategies from All Five Fast Food Companies

Combining the data from all five companies, as seen in Figure 11, the three most

frequently used SMM strategies were Branding Elements (72.6 percent of posts), Videos or GIFs

(33.6 percent of posts), and Branded Characters (17.1 percent of posts). The categories of

Sportspeople, Vouchers, and Health Claims were rendered obsolete. This is perhaps because

Vassallo et al. found that Sportspeople were primarily used by Energy Drink companies, and

Health Claims and Vouchers were found to be very infrequent among fast food companies in
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their sample (Vassallo et al., 2018, p. 5). These results are in partial agreement with my

hypothesis that the most common SMM strategies would be branding and product imagery.

Though Branding Elements did turn out to be the most commonly used strategy, Product

Imagery was used in only 15.5 percent of posts.

Figure 11: Overall SMM Strategy Frequency

Discussion

Principal Findings

This study found that the three most frequently used SMM strategies by the sample of

five fast food companies were Branding Elements, Videos or GIFs, and Branded Characters. This

is in partial agreement with Vassallo et al., who found that Branding was the most frequently

used strategy in their 2018 study (Vassallo et al., 2018, p. 5). However, they also found Product

Imagery, Links, and Special Price Promotions to be among the three most commonly used SMM
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strategies by fast food accounts, while these strategies were only displayed in 15.5 percent, 2.8

percent, and 0.5 percent of posts in my sample respectively (Vassallo et al., 2018, p.5). In

addition, these results partially agree with Freeman et al. While they did find that the most

commonly used SMM strategy on Facebook by EDNP food and beverage companies was

Branding Elements, they found UGC and Competitions to be the second and third most

prominent (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 5). In my study, these strategies were only displayed in 17.3

percent and 0.5 percent of posts respectively. Beyond the marketing strategies being used, this

post found that Bragg et al.’s assumption that brands may use more subtle and entertaining tools

to advertise their products on social media to reduce awareness of their promotional nature was

false, as Branding Elements and Branded Characters were present in a total of 341 posts, or 89.7

percent of the sample. However, Bragg et al.’s inference about the use of entertaining tools can

not be completely written off. In the Wendy’s sample, for example, Humor was the most

commonly used SMM strategy. An example of such a post can be found in Figure 12. In

addition, McDonald’s used Third Party Characters in 19.4 percent of posts, including characters

from popular movies such as Richie Rich, Clueless, and The Fast and the Furious, and TV shows

such as Loki and The Devil is a Part-Timer. This can be seen in Figure 13.

This study has confirmed that Branding is very prominently used by fast food companies

on Instagram, and provided insight into the fact that while subtlety in advertising is uncommon,

entertainment is moderately used by certain pages. This demonstrates the detrimental effects of

SMM, because previous research has found that the use of entertainment creates trust in a brand,

which turns into purchase intent (Hanaysha, 2022, p. 6)

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Figure 12: Example of Wendy’s Post with Humor

Figure 13: Example of McDonald’s Post with Third Party Characters

Implications
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This study has expanded on the existing knowledge of the nature of Instagram posts by

the most successful fast food companies in the United States, not only by providing an update

with data from the year 2023, but also by enhancing the code categories initially used by

Freeman et al. and Vassallo et al. for a more holistic description of the posts. This proved to be

very insightful. For example, the category of Humor from Ginsberg was the most prominent

strategy in the Wendy’s sample (73.4 percent of posts). In addition, Bragg et al.’s category of

Holiday Themes was present in 29.9 percent of Starbucks’ posts. Though these themes were only

in a small percentage of posts in the overall sample, these additional categories provide useful

insight into the nature of Instagram activity from individual fast food companies.

The findings of this study imply that fast food companies do not feel the need to hide the

promotional nature of their posts through subtle marketing techniques. Instead, Branding

Elements such as brand colors, logos, trademarks, and slogans are used along with other

strategies such as Celebrities to provide an entertaining experience for viewers of the content.

For example, as seen in Figure 14, McDonald’s had many posts with DJ Kerwin Frost to

advertise a new meal.

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Figure 14: Example of McDonald’s Post with a Celebrity

Because the strategies of Branding Elements, Videos or GIFs, and Branded Characters

are often used, sometimes in tandem with other entertaining strategies, by the most successful

fast food companies in the United States, similar strategies can be adopted by organizations

trying to promote healthy eating among youth. This would begin to counteract the effect that fast

food marketing has on fast food consumption among youth by using the nature of SMM to

prompt healthy eating. With the large amount of time youth spend on social media, particularly

Instagram, exposure to healthy eating content with SMM strategies that have proven to be

compelling can improve the eating habits of youth, reducing the prevalence of disordered eating

behaviors and diet-related diseases. Previous research suggests that public health campaigns on

social media tend to evoke “negative emotional arousal,” which isn’t useful on social media

platforms because users can easily hide messages that make them uncomfortable (Freeman et al.,
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2014, p. 8). This research complements this assumption by showing that the posts of the most

successful fast food companies in the United States use strategies that evoke positive emotional

arousal, namely through entertainment. Therefore, public health campaigns on social media can

seek to use such entertaining tools, not necessarily void of branding (such as slogans for healthy

eating), to encourage healthy eating on social media. Future research could use the coding guide

established by this study to see how frequently public health campaigns on social media use the

strategies that are commonly used by fast food companies.

Limitations & Suggestions for Future Research

Though this study made up for the major limitation of Vassallo et al.’s study by coding

for every strategy in a post, there are a few limitations of this research. The first is the fact that

every company had a different amount of posts in the overall sample. This could lead to an

overrepresentation of the most prominent strategy in the larger samples, such as Branding

Elements in the Starbucks sample (197 posts), and an underrepresentation of the most prominent

strategy in the smaller samples, such as Humor in the Wendy’s sample (49 posts). Though humor

was the most prominent strategy in the Wendy’s sample, it was found in only 13.9 percent of

posts in the overall sample. This information still gives insight into the most frequently used

SMM strategies by fast food companies by spotlighting those that post the most frequently,

however further research should be conducted with this coding guide using an equal sample from

every company to compare the results.

In addition, the posts collected covered the “holiday season” by including October,

November, and December. Though Holiday Themes only appeared in 15.7 percent of posts, this

figure may represent an overestimate because the sample of posts covered a time of year known
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for holidays, and omitted the beginning half of the year. For a more accurate representation of the

frequency of this theme, one year’s worth of posts would need to be collected.

Finally, trend cycles on social media change very quickly. A future study should combat

this issue by focusing on posts made within a short period of time, such as within a month, and

by including more companies in their sample. This would provide a broader image of the posts in

a certain period of time.

Conclusion

The five most successful fast food companies in the United States use Instagram as a

marketing tool to varying degrees, as shown by large ranges in the amount of posts from each

company in the study period. McDonald’s, the most successful company in the sample, did not

have the highest number of posts in the study period, suggesting that frequent Instagram activity

does not necessarily correlate with systemwide sales. Nevertheless, this study has shed light onto

the nature of fast food marketing on Instagram by updating a commonly used coding guide to

include more strategies and coding for every strategy in a post in a retrospective conceptual

content analysis. The data suggests that branding is heavily used in the posts across all five

companies, rather than subtlety in advertising. This is perhaps to promote brand awareness,

which has been found by multiple studies to increase brand trust and consumer purchase intent

(Bagnato et al., 2023, p. 14; Hanaysha, 2022, p. 6; Khan et al., 2022, p. 540; Macdonald &

Sharp, 2000, p. 6; Sadom et al., 2023, p. 18).

This study has expanded on the existing literature by challenging the assumption that

brands use subtle tools on social media to advertise their products, and by confirming that

companies use entertaining tools. Because of the heavy presence of branding in these posts, those
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viewing them, particularly youth, are susceptible to developing an intent to purchase fast food

products. This perpetuates the obesity crisis, creating a need for counter-action by public health

campaigns. The marketing techniques of successful fast food companies can be studied, and

future research can determine how these strategies can be adopted by public health campaigns.
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