Icon (Close Menu)

Logout

Papa John’s Welcomes All In New Ads

4 min read

Brant Barnes, a franchisee who lives in Fayetteville, has lent his voice to the effort to rebrand Papa John’s after controversies caused by founder John Schnatter’s racially charged remarks.

Barnes, a half-owner of nine Papa John’s pizza restaurants in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Oklahoma, has joined dozens of Papa John’s franchisees and employees in an advertising campaign stressing the diversity to be found in the company.

Schnatter resigned as chairman of the restaurant chain, the third-largest in the world, in July after Forbes reported that he used the N-word on a conference call in May. In August, Papa John’s CEO Steve Ritchie blamed declining sales on negative publicity generated by Schnatter. Same-store sales fell 6.1 percent in the second quarter and sales in July fell 10.5 percent. The company also downgraded its earnings outlook for 2018.

It wasn’t the first time Schnatter had caused controversy for the company, based in Louisville, Kentucky. In November, Schnatter linked falling pizza sales at Papa John’s, a sponsor of the NFL, to the league’s handling of football players’ protests during the national anthem. “Last year the ratings for the NFL went backwards because of the elections,” Schnatter said. “This year the ratings are going backwards because of the controversy. And so the controversy is polarizing the customer, polarizing the country.”

White supremacists rallied to Schnatter’s defense, with the website the Daily Stormer featuring a photo of a “sieg heil pizza” whose pepperoni slices had been arranged in the shape of a swastika.

A couple of weeks later, in mid-November, the company tweeted a multipart statement, including the following:

“We believe in the right to protest inequality and support the players’ movement to create a new platform for change. We also believe together, as Americans, we should honor our anthem. There is a way to do both.

“We will work with the players and league to find a positive way forward. Open to ideas from all. Except neo-nazis — [rude emoji] those guys.”

Schnatter stepped down as CEO on Jan. 1, replaced by Ritchie. But Schnatter stayed as chairman — until the N-word debacle.

Since Nov. 1, when Schnatter’s NFL comments were reported, until Wednesday Papa John’s stock, trading on the Nasdaq, has fallen from $62.26 per share to $50.14, but has seesawed considerably in between. In February, Papa John’s ended its NFL sponsorship.

And the drama continues. CNBC reported Wednesday that Schnatter, who owns 30 percent of the pizza chain, was contacting private equity firms about uniting to buy back Papa John’s and take it private. Reuters reported, also on Wednesday, that the company had asked potential buyers to submit offers to buy the chain.

At any rate, the company decided in July to sever Schnatter from its marketing efforts, and it’s now launched new advertising, including the commercial featuring Brant Barnes, illustrating the diversity of its franchisees. Called Voices of Papa John’s, the ad checks almost every demographic box as franchise owners and company employees say, “You’ve heard one voice of Papa John’s for a long time. It’s time you heard from all of us,” adding, “We want to personally invite you to our Papa John’s. Every single one of you.”

Barnes, who’s been a Papa John’s franchisee for 13 years, has restaurants in Cabot; Hot Springs; Mountain Home; Searcy; Van Buren; West Memphis; Hernando, Mississippi; Branson, Missouri; and Muskogee, Oklahoma.

He decided to participate in this new campaign “because of the friendships, the relationships and the pride in Papa John’s, across all of our employees, across my managers, across other franchisees,” said Barnes, who was born and raised in Mountain Home.

“Being a franchisee for 13 years, I know the hard work, I know the dedication of all the people,” he said. “We go to a conference every year and there’s 2,000 or 3,000 people there and I’ve met people from all over the world that are just really passionate and working their butt off as entrepreneurs for Papa John’s. And it’s about all of them and all of the employees and all of the general managers and not one person.”

The Schnatter controversy hasn’t hurt his business, Barnes said, but he’s been asked about it. “We concentrate on what we do locally,” he said. “We’re actually positive this year and growing as a company, so it hasn’t really affected us as long as we keep our head down and do what we do right.”

Doing what’s right. Now, that’s a concept.

Send this to a friend