Ranker Spotlight:

Wendy’s Hamburgers

Famous for their Frostys, fresh beef, and square hamburger patties, Wendy’s is without a doubt one of the country’s most popular restaurant chains. It’s the 19th most profitable fast food enterprise in the world, and as of 2018, it was the third-largest hamburger chain with more than 6,500 locations. And the company is serious about making in-roads with young, digital-first customers: downloads of their app increased by 15% during the pandemic, it’s got a famously spicy Twitter account, and their partnership with beloved animated comedy Rick and Morty earlier this month had fans driving hours to order from a Panorama City location renamed “Morty’s.”

But as Wendy’s eyes the future, how does it plan to take this strategy further? Who’s already loyal to the “old-fashioned hamburger” chain, and who do they need to reach to grow their audience? We’re using Ranker Insights to take a closer a look at how Wendy’s ranks on some of our most food lists, as well as the tastes and preferences of the chain’s biggest fans.

How Wendy’s Ranks on Ranker

Very few chains get the kind of love Wendy’s does on Ranker: the hamburger restaurant has 1,000 upvotes on The Fast Food You Could Eat Every Day If You Had To (a list with 40K votes in total), giving it a rank of #2, with only Chick-Fil-A ahead of it. That’s an incredibly high compliment, indicating that, like Chick-Fil-A, Wendy’s has a devoted base of consumers who won’t settle for anything besides their favorite brand.

On Ranker’s big leaderboard, The Best Fast Food Chains (444K votes), Wendy’s has an enviable #4 position, racking up more than 9,000 upvotes. Ahead of it are Chick-Fil-A again, along with Five Guys and In-N-Out — two more chains with fanatic followings. Their french fries in particular are a draw for fast food fans, earning them the #7 spot on The Best Fast Food French Fries (114K votes). Perhaps most impressively, it’s the #26 Best Global Brand (22K votes), making it one of the most popular enterprises in the world. The only fast food chain that ranks higher on that list is McDonald’s.

These rankings indicate Wendy’s has a unique ability to straddle the line between cult favorite, hipster-beloved fast food like In-N-Out and tremendous global chains like McDonald’s. If it wants to keep edging into the territory of Chick-Fil-A and Five Guys, it might consider indulging in some recent food trends — we wouldn’t mind seeing a Wendy’s smashburger appear on the menu in the next few months!

What Do Wendy’s Fans Love?

Tens of thousands of votes have been cast for Wendy’s and its menu items on some of Ranker’s most popular fast food lists. What and who else do those fans vote for? Ranker Insights can tell us more about the likes and dislikes of the franchise’s biggest fans.

Other Restaurants

Wendy’s is a humongous global company, so its fans are as diverse as the world itself. That being said, Ranker Insights tells us that they’re 5X more likely than the average Ranker voter to love Taco Bell, Burger King, and Dairy Queen when it comes to other fast food brands. They’re far less excited about McDonald’s, a brand they’re no more likely to upvote than the average reader. The same is true for In-N-Out: even though the two brands seem to be competing for the same audience, fans of one burger joint don’t necessarily gravitate toward the other.

Retail

Those who love Wendy’s are 6X more likely to vote up Aéropostale or Carharrt on our list of The Top Clothing Brands for Men (377K votes) — one an upscale, mall-based retailer, the other a brand that sells solid, sturdy workwear. Once again, the theme of bridging the gap between upscale and blue-collar is evident. Similarly, Wendy’s fans are 4X more likely to vote up surfing retail brand Billabong or preppy high-fashion company Burberry.

Music

Here, once again, Wendy’s threads the needle between hip and mainstream. Those who voted up Wendy’s on the list of Best Fast Food Chains were 8X more likely to vote up Kacey Musgraves on our list of the The Best Current Female Singers (604K votes). Musgraves is a crossover country/pop musician who has won over fans outside the country universe for her strong songwriting and sleek production. But just behind Musgraves among Wendy’s fans on the same list is Kellie Pickler, a more mainstream country singer who first gained fame as a contestant on American Idol.

These stories are crafted using Ranker Insights, which takes over one billion votes cast on Ranker.com and converts them into actionable psychographics about pop culture fans across the world. To learn more about how our Ranker Insights can be customized to serve your business needs, visit insights.ranker.com, or email us at insights@ranker.com.

MORE INSIGHTS LIKE THIS: