Papa John's Demise?

Like a Pizza from the Ashes

Papa John's has been under some heat recently. After a long downward trend in pizza sales and stock price, their problems came to a head when founder and CEO John Schnatter (Papa John himself) was outed for using racial slurs in a conference call. Public outrage ensued and all in all, it was not a good look for the company. John Schnatter has since been removed from the company and is currently suing Papa John's for control of the company. The Papa John's company has been trying to distance themselves from John Schnatter as best they can. The first big step they took was this video tweet in response to the whole situation.

https://twitter.com/papajohns/status/1033062371928035328?lang=en

The response to this tweet was hesitant at best, with most people viewing it as a transparent public relations stunt. However, it does seem that the company actually wants to move past this and get back to their real value proposition, "Better pizza, better ingredients, Papa John's" but they've got a lot of cleaning up ahead of them.

In the interest of moving forward, Papa John's recently released a new commercial showcasing diversity in their team of managers and franchise owners.

Unfortunately, after sifting through complaints about service (people still do buy their pies), the public consensus on social media is still dubious at best. Most people commenting that this commercial does not feel genuine, while others say it's just too little too late. Their social media managers are doing their best damage control, and I believe that Papa John's is handling the backlash fairly well considering the difficult situation they find themselves in.


If I were leading the charge on this re-branding and damage control I would have a tough time making a decision on what's next. I might try some community outreach and maybe hold a public panel to let people vent their outrage, but most of all I would just keep moving forward because the more steps you take forward, the more distance is created from this marketing nightmare of a situation.

I think that the biggest lesson to take away from Papa John's story is that in a leadership position of that magnitude you have to understand that people listen to what you say ALL. THE. TIME. If you say something that the public takes exception to, then that will put your company in a very tough spot. Things do heal over time, but some companies might not be able to survive the healing process. I personally hate the things that John Schnatter has done and said, and am in a sick way glad to see that he is losing his company, but just like the pizza they make, Papa John's will likely come out of this perhaps crispy, and maybe a bit burnt, but just fine overall.