Subway tops ‘Social Currency’ ranking

Subway has earned the No. 1 spot in Vivaldi Partners’ annual “Social Currency Impact Ranking,” which includes 60 of the largest advertisers in the world, from retailers to restaurants.

New York-based consulting firm Vivaldi Partners defines its “Social Currency” metric as a measurement of the extent to which people involve brands in their everyday social media activities, like sharing and posting messages, images and video. More than 5,000 people in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany were surveyed on their perceptions of more than 60 brands for this study.

Subway, the franchisor of nearly 39,000 quick-service restaurants in 101 countries, ranked No. 1 in Social Currency because it “continuously manages to sell promoted deals without pushing the advertising theme too far,” Vivaldi Partners said in its report.

Subway’s score of 712 out of a possible 1,000 was compiled by calculating consumers’ perceptions of six branding dimensions: conversation, information, advocacy, identity, affiliation and utility. The score also included the measurement of three conversion behaviors: awareness to consideration, consideration to purchase, and purchase to loyalty.

The author of the study remarked that Subway’s top score leaves plenty of runway for growth, as brands develop more sophisticated social and mobile marketing programs.

“Even the best still have a lot of room for improvement,” Vivaldi Partners founder and chief executive Erich Joachimsthaler wrote in an email to Nation’s Restaurant News. “This is a finding that came out in every study we did so far. Consumers generally hope for much more in terms of utilizing social, digital and mobile to connect with others and with brands, or create social currency.”

The report found that Subway’s large social media presence of more than 21 million Facebook likes and more than 1 million Twitter followers, as well as the strategies it employs to drive engagement, conversation, advocacy and affiliation. Vivaldi Partners pointed to the “Flavorizer” application on Subway’s Facebook page as a tool the chain uses to emphasize its positioning as a brand built on freshness and customization, thus solidifying its brand identity.

Vivaldi Partners also noted that separate studies, such as the NRN Social 200 from Nation Restaurant News, and DigitalCoCo’s Restaurant Social Media Index, supported its claim that Subway’s audience is among the most actively engaged in social media.

The NRN Social 200, built with TrackingSocial, monitors the nation’s largest restaurant chains' brand efforts and customer engagement on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Milford, Conn.-based Subway had the third-highest index value as of March 20, with a 69.79 score that trailed only Starbucks’ 110.14 and McDonald’s 83.05 scores.