Fast Food’s Next Playbook: Emotional Logic, Growth Tribes, and the End of Routine

While nostalgia marketing and value meals are having their moments, brands will need to mix things up to attract new growth tribes driven by occasion, emotion, and connection, not just price, according to the latest ELI Report, powered by Sooth’s Emotional Logic Interface.

Sooth Founder Ian Baer informed Modern Restaurant Management (MRM) magazine that future growth lies not with the 57 percent of regular fast food customers, but with the remaining 43 percent —Experimenters, Cravers, Balancers, and Provisioners—and he detailed the distinctions among these tribes. 

Meet the Four Growth Tribes

“Regulars don’t show nearly as much potential for growth as the other four audiences, who we predict will account for more than four in ten quick-service restaurant tickets over the next two years.” 

• Experimenters (16 percent) are here for the new and now. They’re the first people who will post a picture of a new menu item on Instagram. 

“For these consumers, new formats like regional mash-ups, globally-influenced flavors, and limited drops will work best when paired with digital exclusives, app-first launches, and social-media promotions,” said Baer. “Brands should look for ways to connect their menu to social currency with this crowd.”

• Cravers (Five percent) are more impulsive. Rotational treats and add-ons, premium beverages, or bold, high-flavor combos connect when marketed as limited-time escapes from their day-to-day, rather than promoted on price.

• Balancers (10 percent) will respond more to control over their meals. Brands will need to offer them lighter builds, portion choices, transparent nutrition, and the ability to customize items and bundles through all purchase channels. Messaging should emphasize flexibility—fast food that fits their lifestyle.

• Provisioners (11 percent) are less personally motivated by the food because they mainly buy for others. Streamlined group ordering, multi-item bundles, and packaging built for sharing make them advocates. 

“Social and in-app tools that let them coordinate and split orders amplify loyalty. And again, customization makes a big difference here, especially when it's simple and systematized through innovative tech.”

Strategic Predictions for 2026–2027

ELI’s key predictions for the industry include:

• Margin Reset by mid-2026: Rising costs and tariffs will trigger a margin reset, forcing menu and pricing adjustments.

• Menu Innovation: Choice, quality, and convenience will drive share shifts, while dollar deals and gimmicks will fade.

• Two Frequencies (Price vs. Relevance) by 2027: Brands that serve both will gain market share.

• Preference Overtakes Location by 2027: Mobile, delivery, and pickup will account for over 40 percent of transactions, with convenience evolving from physical location to "fit."

“Remember the three rules of both retail and real estate? Location, location, location? That used to define convenience for consumers: the place near the train station, or the drive-through on my way to the highway. Now, it’s about fit, and physical location is an element with increasingly diminished value.The challenge in redefining convenience is integration—making every channel feel equally easy. Operators need unified menus, synchronized prep, and data systems that know the customer and make it easy for them to find satisfaction on their terms, no matter how they order.”

• Group and Shared Orders: This trend is expected to grow significantly by 2027, driven by expanded delivery, hybrid work, and social sharing. Sooth data shows that shared orders—family, team, event—will grow by as much as eight percent in the next two years, outpacing solo visits for the first time. Expanded delivery options, hybrid work, the social sharing economy, and entertainment culture are all significant drivers of this shift. 

What Brands Should Be Doing

“Everything the brand can do to remove friction and unnecessary action on the customer's part matters here: easier multi-person ordering in apps, split-payment options, and packaging that travels well and looks good on a table or screen,” advised Baer.”If I were a fast food CMO, I would evaluate the cost of every click, activation step, and form field between the customer and a completed order. And I would never stop trying to make it more efficient and, ideally, fun for the customer.”

ELI uses AI to simultaneously cross-reference and score more than 100 million independent data signals against 300 million anonymized consumers. It analyzes everything from people’s retail habits to their opinions, attitudes, feelings, media patterns, and social behaviors.

“ELI was built to do one thing: connect brands with the verified emotional, practical, and situational needs of the people who buy their products,” said Baer.”We accurately predict what they need to hear from a brand to choose it over the competition. The most important lesson for all marketers and business operators is that understanding what someone needs emotionally and contextually can predict 93 percent of the choices they make. Unfortunately, nearly all marketing strategies rely on demographics and transactional history to guide their decisions, which account for only seven percent of consumer choice. Once marketers understand the 93 percent and not just the seven percent, they’re no longer guessing what people want, and the rest is just math.”

When it comes to value, brands tend to be much better at understanding what a customer is worth to the brand, as opposed to what that customer values from the brand.

Baer suggests brands focus on understanding who their Regulars are, what they need, and deliver those things very well and consistently. Then, they have to decide how well they can meet the needs of the four emerging tribes who choose fast food for reasons other than routine. 

“Every tribe may not be right for every brand, and that’s okay. For example, Dunkin does great with limited-time drops…where In-N-Out Burger and Raising Cane's succeed around their core menu items. It’s a matter of matching the brand's strengths and capabilities to the needs of its customers. Any brand that hasn’t invested in truly understanding its customers and how these tribes map to its business is running out of time before competitors aggressively steal share by attacking its most vulnerable points.”

Brands need to prioritize transparency in pricing, predictable quality, and loyalty rewards that are tied to behavior rather than spend, and don’t undercut profit margins, Baer said. The conundrum with promotions is that they primarily motivate regulars, while the value proposition for the four more situationally defined tribes is more specialized, which forces a lot of marketers out of their comfort zones. 

“When it comes to value, brands tend to be much better at understanding what a customer is worth to the brand, as opposed to what that customer values from the brand. Promotions are great for single sales and attracting new customers. However, in the long term, relevance comes from fitting into people’s lives, not dangling prizes in front of them or giving them points and coupons they may never redeem.” 

Because Sooth data refreshes weekly, Baer said they can already see that rising costs and tariffs are changing consumer expectations for what “value” means. 

“When people feel squeezed, they look for certainty and predictability, not just deals. This means the brands best positioned for success during this tense consumer period are those that simplify choices, remove friction, and make people feel confident that what they buy will deliver exactly what they expect every time. It’s less about an economic model and more about emotional assurance: a kind of “reliability premium” that offsets tensions over price.”