Popeyes’ CMO is out as the chain looks to reenergize sales
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Popeyes is making a change in marketing leadership.Photo courtesy of Popeyes
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen is overhauling its marketing leadership in a bid to reenergize the brand’s slumping sales results.
Matt Rubin, the fast-food chicken chain’s chief marketing officer, has been dismissed less than a year since his appointment into the role, according to a system message seen by Nation’s Restaurant News.
Two other executives have also left the company and the chain named longtime Burger King marketing executive Barbara Linn VP of calendar, category, execution, and field marketing.
“Our business performance, particularly sales and traffic, is not where we need to be,” Peter Perdue, the brand’s U.S. and Canada president, said in the message. “Despite significant effort across our organization and system, our results are falling short of what we believe Popeyes is capable of delivering.
“We have great food, deep brand equity, and loyal guests, and I believe Popeyes should be leading the chicken category in the U.S. and Canada.”
The company has started a search for a new chief marketing officer. In the meantime, Perdue will focus “a significant amount of my own attention” into the marketing team, agency partners, and franchisee advisors to address potential changes. “We are committed to getting this right and finding someone who can successfully lead the marketing team’s contribution to our brand’s long-term growth,” he said.
Popeyes’ same-store sales have fallen in seven of the past eight quarters, not including the third quarter. Parent company Restaurant Brands International (RBI) reports third-quarter earnings on Thursday morning. But the comments and the change in marketing leadership likely means sales have fallen in eight of the past nine periods.
Perdue was brought over from Burger King last year to serve as Popeyes president, as part of a way to inject the company with energy. Perdue’s task was to improve the operation of the chain’s restaurants. Multiple operators told NRN on Wednesday that the company is making progress on that front.
But franchisees have also been frustrated by the state of the chain’s marketing over the past year.
One operator noted that, since its famous introduction of the Chicken Sandwich in 2019, Popeyes has opened about 1,000 additional restaurants, many of which are in non-core markets outside the brand’s home base in the South. Yet marketing hasn’t caught up.
“We’ve got to have marketing and creative that resonates outside of central cities and the South and more broadly across the country,” said one operator, who spoke only on condition that we don’t use their name. “There are opportunities for us to execute. But we’ve got to tell people about this product.”
RBI is hoping to get the same success with a marketing change that it has with previous overhauls at Tim Hortons and then Burger King.
In 2019, for instance, Tim Hortons President Axel Schwan shifted his focus to marketing while the company sought out a new marketing chief, a job that would ultimately go to Hope Bagozzi.
Last year, Burger King President Tom Curtis shifted more work to the marketing while the chain changed marketing leadership. Burger King ultimately hired Joel Yashinsky from Applebee’s.
In both cases, the shift in focus was followed by accelerating sales. Burger King’s same-store sales have been positive in every quarter since the marketing change was made.
In each case, the chain leaves operations up to strong, existing chief operating officers to give the brand presidents more time to focus on marketing. At Tim Hortons, for instance, Schwan left operations up to Mike Hancock, who is now brand president at Firehouse Subs.
At Burger King, Curtis relied on Perdue, who was COO of the brand at the time.
In Popeyes’ case, Perdue will leave the operations task up to the chain’s COO, Chris Padoan.
“It’ll definitely benefit the system,” one franchisee said. “In my opinion, change always brings out the good.”
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