Fast-food companies spent as much as 80% more last year in a bid to get consumers to sample their products, according to the latest figures.

Total fast food advertising spend was €12.9m in 2008, up from €10.7m the previous year, a jump of over 20%, Institute of Advertising Practitioners of Ireland (IAPI) data shows.

While media inflation would have played a part in this hike at the start of the year, when demand for advertising was still high, media deflation was well on its way by the fourth quarter.

The biggest spender by far was McDonald's, shelling out over €6.94m on advertising, a 9.5% increase on 2007. This is more than treble the money its rival Burger King spent, which totalled €2.21m, up by over 20% on the previous year.

A big chunk of the advertising money spent by McDonalds provided a welcome shot in the arm for RTE. McDonald's spent €1.87m with the cash-strapped national broadcaster in a year when other ad revenue was drastically drying up.

Knowing that the children are the future, McDonald's poured money into promoting its Happy Meals with an advertising outlay of €352,000 in 2008, a massive 924% increase on 2007.

Buckets of chicken in front of the television was being favoured over nights out as consumers traded down to lower-priced food and Kentucky Fried Chicken promoted value products accordingly, spending close to €500,000 over its 'Big Night In', 'Bargain Bucket' and 'Mum's Night Off' campaigns, mostly on TV .

Increased competition spurred on ad spend by pizza take-out names such as Domino's, Four Star, and Godfather's. These three spent close to €1m between them on advertising in 2008, a spending hike of about 25% on the previous year.

Four Star Pizza pushed up its spend by over 80%, increasing a modest ad budget of around €11,000 to more than €85,000 in 2008, while Domino's Pizza spent €641,000, particularly on TV activity – some 23% more than in 2007.

Supermac's total advertising outlay for the year was remarkably restrained compared to its global brand competitors, at just €483,000, an increase of over 20% on 2007, but a figure that is not much more than some other brands spend on just one campaign.

Sean McCrave of IAPI said that while the figures show an uplift in fast food advertising spend in 2008, it may be "hugely down" by now.

However McDonald's will still spend on advertising in 2009 and its budgets will be the same or higher than last year, marketing director Lucy Murray said. "We will continue spending through the recession," she added. "Total advertising budgets will remain the same or more."

In general though, Murray predicts a vastly changed economic landscape this year, pointing to last week's dismal ERSI economic predictions. "While we are faring better than most, we would naturally like things to be better," she said.

What companies are spending on in terms of advertising will be changing hugely, McCrave expects. "There will be less touchy-feely brand building and corporate advertising – now it is purely about shifting product, that's what matters," he said.

This was already evident last year in the sharp cuts in corporate or general brand reinforcement advertising. Burger King more than halved its corporate branding ad budget from €1.39m to €680,000 and McDonald's corporate ad spend went down by over 25%, from €1.91m to €1.43m.

Given the youthful customer base of the sector, remarkably little is spent on digital activity, according to the data of all fast food companies except McDonald's, which spent close to €50,000 on internet advertising and over €44,000 on a WiFi campaign.

Burger Wars Who's The Daddy?

The 'big two' fast food players, McDonalds and Burger King each shelled out hundreds of thousands of euros on individual advertising campaigns to get us to buy their burgers.

Burger King

Campaign: Angry Whopper

Total spend: €427,000

Media spend breakdown: newspaper ads €36,000; TV ads €47,000; Radio ads €48,000; outdoor ads €281,000; cinema ads €13,000

Campaign: Burger King
Angus

Total spend: €365,000

Media spend breakdown: Print €45,000; TV €129,000; Outdoor €191,000

McDonald's

Campaign: M Burger

Spend: €457,000

Media spend breakdown: TV ads €297,000; Radio ads €12,400; Outdoor ads €135,000; Internet €11,000.

Campaign: Big Mac

Spend: €513,600

Media spend breakdown:
TV ads €204,000; radio ads €37,000; Outdoor ads €156,000; Cinema ads €110,000; Internet €5,520