For this message testing study, we wrote 12 marketing messages for a fast casual restaurant and showed them to 96 US diners. After each one, we asked whether it would make them more or less likely to visit, and why.
The best message got specific about value. "Your Money Goes Further Here" promised combos under $8, and 82% of diners said it made them more likely to visit. A vaguer value pitch, "No Guilt at the Register," talked about fair prices without naming one, and it landed at 59%. At the bottom were two speed promises, at 51% each, including a pickup "timed to the minute" that diners were skeptical of.
We saw this specific pattern hold in all four categories of the study. Messages with a number, a step or a list did better than messages with a feeling. Messages that promised too much pushed more people away than any other kind.
TL;DR: specific messages beat general ones in every category, and the lines diners couldn't believe did the most damage.
Key takeaways
"Your Money Goes Further Here" won overall. 82% said it made them more likely to visit. Only 2% chose "somewhat less likely," the most negative answer we offered, and no message got fewer.
Wording mattered more than the topic. Two messages about saving money landed 23 points apart (82% vs. 59%), and so did two health messages (75% vs. 52%).
Overpromising cost the most. "Healthy Enough to Be Your Habit" (14.6%) and "Ready Before You Are" (13.5%) made more diners less likely to visit than any other message.
Convenience was the hardest category. Its best message reached 64%, the lowest of the four category winners.
The best health message simply showed what's in the food. "You Know What's In It" promised every ingredient listed and every calorie visible. Almost half of diners (48%) said it made them much more likely to visit, the strongest reaction to any message except the $8 combo one.
How we ran the message test
We wrote three messages in each of four categories a fast casual brand might lead with: value and affordability, convenience and speed, food quality and taste, and health and wellness. The restaurant wasn't named.
Every diner saw all 12 messages, one category at a time. For each message they:
Rated how appealing it was.
Explained, in their own words, what worked or what didn't.
Said whether it made them much more likely, somewhat more likely, no more or less likely, or somewhat less likely to visit.
The scores tell you which message won. The answers to "why" tell you what to keep in the next draft. Diners said the winning message felt like clear value because it named a price and a rewards payoff.
Below, "more likely" combines much and somewhat more likely. Net intent is "more likely" minus "somewhat less likely."
The same setup works for ad copy testing. Swap in headlines or ad lines, and keep the behavior question and the follow-up asking why.
Message | Category | More likely to visit | Less likely to visit | Net intent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Your Money Goes Further Here | Value | 82.3% | 2.1% | 80.2 |
Fast Doesn't Have to Mean Forgettable | Food quality | 76.0% | 5.2% | 70.8 |
Eat Well for Less | Value | 74.0% | 4.2% | 69.8 |
You Know What's In It | Health | 75.0% | 6.3% | 68.8 |
Built for Your Busiest Days | Convenience | 63.5% | 5.2% | 58.3 |
Real Ingredients, Real Fast | Food quality | 68.8% | 10.4% | 58.3 |
Eat Out Without the Tradeoff | Health | 66.7% | 8.3% | 58.3 |
No Guilt at the Register | Value | 59.4% | 7.3% | 52.1 |
Crave It Again | Food quality | 57.3% | 11.5% | 45.8 |
The Easiest Part of Your Day | Convenience | 51.0% | 7.3% | 43.8 |
Ready Before You Are | Convenience | 51.0% | 13.5% | 37.5 |
Healthy Enough to Be Your Habit | Health | 52.1% | 14.6% | 37.5 |
1. The winner named a price
All three value messages were about saving money. The one that won said how much.
"Your Money Goes Further Here" read: "Combos under $8. Rewards that actually add up. A loyalty program that gives you a free meal before you even realize you've earned one." Half of diners (50%) said it made them much more likely to visit, the highest share for any message.
"No Guilt at the Register" made the same promise without a number: "Prices that don't make you second-guess your order." It reached 59%, and a third of diners (33%) said it changed nothing for them.
When diners explained why they liked a value message, they talked about clear value and about rewards. The $8 combo gave them both in one line.
2. Speed claims ran into disbelief
Convenience was the weakest category. Its best message, "Built for Your Busiest Days," reached 63.5%, below every other category's winner.
That message described the steps: "Order ahead, pull up, drive off." Diners who liked convenience messages talked about speed, ease and a pickup without friction, and this one showed how that would happen.
The other two leaned on promises. "Ready Before You Are" offered "Your usual order, remembered. Your pickup, timed to the minute." It tied for the lowest net intent in the study, and 13.5% said it made them less likely to visit. "The Easiest Part of Your Day" promised to "get you out faster than you planned." 41.7% said it made no difference, the highest "no change" share of any message.
Diners pushed back on claims like "no lines," "no wait" and "ready before you are."
3. Food quality needed proof, not adjectives
"Fast Doesn't Have to Mean Forgettable" won the food category with 76%. Its copy was short and concrete: "Made fresh. Cooked to order." Diners responded well to signals that the food was made to order, along with the fresh ingredients and flavor.
"Crave It Again" promised "the kind of meal you're still thinking about two hours later." That was another claim diners doubted, and 11.5% said the message made them less likely to visit.
Vague "real" language also drew complaints. Phrases like "real food" read as marketing copy when the message provided no evidence for them.
4. Health messages worked when they showed what's in the food
"You Know What's In It" won health with 75%: "Every ingredient, listed. Every calorie, visible. No mystery sauces, no fine print." 47.9% said it made them much more likely to visit, second only to the $8 combo message.
"Healthy Enough to Be Your Habit" finished last in the category at 52.1%. It also drew the largest "less likely" share in the whole study, 14.6%. Its copy opened with what the food isn't: "Not a salad you choke down. Not a bowl that leaves you hungry an hour later."
Health copy also had its own risks. Some diners found calorie talk judgmental, others were put off by diet buzzwords, and many still wanted to hear that the food tasted good. Listing calories plainly, as "You Know What's In It" did, landed better than diet language.
Same score, different risk
"Ready Before You Are" and "The Easiest Part of Your Day" both made 51.0% of diners more likely to visit. On that number alone they look tied, but "Ready Before You Are" pushed 13.5% of diners the other way, almost twice the 7.3% for "The Easiest Part of Your Day." If you only track the top score, you'd miss which message is more likely to cost you customers.
Where Listen fits
We ran this study on Listen, a message testing platform built on AI-moderated interviews. Each diner had a 15 to 20 minute AI-moderated video interview. They rated every message and then explained their rating out loud, so each number in the table comes with the reasons behind it.
You can run the same kind of test on your own messages, with your own audience, and get results in hours.
What to do with this
Put a number, a step or a list in the message. The winners named a $8 combo, described "order ahead, pull up, drive off," or listed every ingredient.
Cut promises people can't check. "Timed to the minute" and "two hours later" lost the most ground in their categories.
Compare messages within a category first. Whether you're running brand message testing or campaign message testing, the gaps inside a category (up to 23 points) were bigger than the gaps between category winners.
Track "less likely" and "no change," not just "more likely." Two messages with the same top score can carry very different risk.
Ask why after every rating. The reasons tell you what to keep when you write the next round.
Methodology
Listen Labs ran 96 AI-moderated video interviews in March 2026 with US adults who eat at quick-service or fast casual restaurants, recruited from a general population panel. Each interview took about 15 to 20 minutes. Every participant saw all 12 messages, grouped by category, and rated each one for appeal and visit intent. Participants who found a message appealing explained what appealed to them, and those who didn't explained what didn't land. All percentages use a base of 96. Net intent is the share more likely to visit minus the share somewhat less likely, so table values can differ by 0.1 because of rounding. Open-ended answers were coded into themes. The restaurant was not named, and the messages were written for the study. No individual responses are quoted.