Sunoco's Performance Doesn't Match Its Presence

The bottom line up front

Sunoco has the metrics of a Northeast regional brand operating under the fiction of national presence. Its 68.9% awareness in the Northeast and 5.3% Mental Market Share there tell the story of a brand with real, earned regional relevance. Its 23.2% awareness in the West and 0.3% MMS there tell the rest of it: outside its home territory, Sunoco is functionally invisible. At 1.8% MMS nationally — rank #22 of 30 — the brand’s metrics put it in a niche tier alongside brands like Cumberland Farms and Citgo, most of which are also regional specialists without pretense of national scale. The strategic tension for Sunoco is a question of identity: is it a Northeast fuel brand that should invest in deepening its position in the one market where it genuinely competes, or a national brand name that is spreading investment too thin to matter anywhere outside New England and the Mid-Atlantic? The data strongly suggests the former. What Sunoco has in the Northeast is worth defending. What it has everywhere else is not worth claiming.

Where Sunoco Stands Against Other Gas Stations

Sunoco ranks #22 of 30 brands at 1.8% Mental Market Share — but that number is a weighted average that obscures the regional reality. Its 43.6% mental penetration and network size of 5.7 places it well below the category's competitive tier, behind brands like ARCO (2.3% MMS), Murphy USA (2.2%), and Marathon (2.1%), and only marginally above Cumberland Farms (1.8%), Texaco (1.3%), and Citgo (1.2%). The national figure, however, averages a 5.3% Northeast MMS — a genuinely competitive mid-tier position — against 1.6% in the Midwest, 1.2% in the South, and 0.3% in the West. In the Northeast, Sunoco is in the conversation. Everywhere else, it is not. 

The mean emotional connection score of 2.44 out of 7 is among the lowest in the competitive set, and the age gradient compounds the problem. Sunoco ranks in the bottom third of the 30 brands on emotional connection, above only Pilot Flying J, Marathon, Texaco, Valero, Citgo, Sinclair, Phillips 66, 76, and Conoco. Among 65+ consumers, it falls to 1.93 — the second lowest age-cohort score for any brand in the set. The brand is not disliked; it is simply not felt. Consumers who know Sunoco know it as a fuel station on a familiar road, not as a brand they would seek out. That functional indifference is the ceiling on Sunoco's growth as long as the c-store and experience occasion associations remain undeveloped. 

The mental advantage profile is narrow, fuel-first, and regionally anchored. Sunoco over-indexes on driving and noticing I'm low on fuel (+6.0 vs. category average) and routine fill-up (+3.5) — a similar profile to Shell and ExxonMobil, but with lower-amplitude scores because the overall MMS base is smaller. The disadvantages are concentrated in food and c-store occasions: feeling hungry but not wanting a full restaurant stop (-3.0), need something quick for lunch (-2.5), late-night food (-1.9), group snacks (-1.6). These are modest negative scores relative to the deepest disadvantages in the set — the brand is not actively excluded from food occasions, it simply isn't present in them at all.

What Moments Sunoco Owns in the Gas Station Category

Who Sunoco Is Winning And Losing

The Northeast is the only market where Sunoco has a competitive position worth analyzing. In every other region, the brand's mental availability is too thin to generate meaningful strategic conclusions from segment analysis — the West's 0.3% MMS, for example, represents fewer consumers than the margin of error can reliably detect. All segment analysis below should be read through a Northeast lens.

Sunoco's age profile is unusually flat at the total level, but the Northeast tells a more interesting story. Total MMS ranges only from 1.6% among 18-34 and 35-44 consumers to 2.1% among 65+. This is one of the narrower age spreads in the competitive set — the brand neither leads decisively among younger consumers nor peaks sharply with older ones. The slight 65+ over-index is consistent with an older, habitual consumer base that formed its Sunoco relationship when the brand had a stronger regional presence and has maintained that habit through inertia. It is a retention signal, not a growth signal.

The income profile is essentially flat across all three bands — 1.7% among under-$50k households, 1.8% among $50-100k, and 1.7% among $100k+ — with no meaningful differentiation. Sunoco is not positioned as a premium or value brand. It is a fuel station on a road, equally accessible to all income groups and preferred by none of them on the basis of price, quality, or experience.

What's In the Way for Sunoco

Among Sunoco's own customers, operational friction — not access — is the defining barrier. The user/non-user barrier split reveals that Sunoco users are more likely than non-users to cite limited hours (+11.2 percentage points) and high in-store prices (+6.4pp), while route and location friction is actually lower among users than non-users. The interpretation: Sunoco's customers have found the brand and are using it habitually, but the experience is generating friction that wouldn't be tolerated if a more compelling alternative were available. The "None of these" gap of -7.4pp means roughly 89% of Sunoco's own customers cite at least one barrier — a pattern consistent with proximity-based loyalty rather than active preference.

The 38% never-purchased rate is the most urgent trial barrier in the brand's profile. For a brand with 45% national awareness, it implies that approximately 85% of aware consumers have not visited — a conversion failure that goes well beyond the Northeast/non-Northeast split. Even in the Northeast, where awareness is nearly 70%, Sunoco has not built the kind of c-store offer or emotional pull that converts aware consumers who are not already habitual visitors. The brand is losing the consideration battle among consumers who know it exists.

Fuel price friction is elevated among users (47.0%) but not significantly above non-users (48.9%). This is different from brands like Shell or Casey's, where users are notably more price-frustrated than non-users. Sunoco's price frustration is ambient — it reflects the broader category environment rather than specific Sunoco pricing issues. The more distinctive friction signals for Sunoco are operational: hours and in-store prices, both of which suggest a brand whose physical locations are not delivering the experience its consumers need to maintain loyalty.

About this research

Morning Consult conducts over 30,000 daily proprietary surveys in 45 countries covering more than 5,000 brands and 50 economic indicators. 

Our category advantage research is aimed at understanding the needs driving consumers in your category — and how your brand can own more of them. This research is built on validated principles of brand-driven growth and powered by Morning Consult’s industry-leading sampling technology.

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