Burger King’s first commercial since deposing The King has been well-received by consumers, but the chain’s campaign marks only the first step in a long road toward turning around customer perception and chain sales, according to research firm YouGov BrandIndex.

Before BK launched its first marketing foray with new ad agency McGarryBowen to showcase the California Whopper — which debuted the weekend of Aug. 20 — Burger King trailed McDonald’s and Wendy’s significantly in BrandIndex’s “impression score.”

The New York-based firm uses its “impression score” to gauge consumers’ general perceptions of the thousands of brands it tracks. It compiles the metric by polling 5,000 consumers in the United States each weekday, asking them, “Do you have a generally favorable impression of this brand,” and subtracting negative responses from positive ones.

The score is a moving average of that daily tally, ranging from positive 100 to negative 100, with a score of zero denoting a neutral perception from consumers.

Ted Marzilli, senior vice president for BrandIndex, said Burger King’s ads for the California Whopper, which focused on food quality rather than a corporate mascot, could help the chain garner incremental visits from consumers who had not considered the brand for a while.

“Burger King is trying to take a different tack, reinvigorate the brand, and get some additional folks into their stores at the margin,” Marzilli said.

The new ads replace the bizarre humor and The King mascot with a tight focus on the food.

“The ads are quite good, I think, because they show the flames and the BK logo right up front, which reminds people about the flame broiling, which always made them different,” he said.

Miami-based Burger King has been wrestling with declining same-store sales lately. Its new marketing, along with several new product introductions, is fueling part of the chain’s efforts to reverse the slide.