Papa Johns Swaps CMOs and Returns to Mass Marketing — Comps Down 8.3%

Papa Johns appointed Chris Lyn-Sue, senior vice president and general manager of international, as its new global chief marketing officer. Current CMO Jenna Bromberg is departing to pursue other opportunities and will advise through August 28 to support the transition. The company also said it will rebalance its media mix toward greater mass exposure in the second half.

Why now

The shake-up arrives amid continued struggles driven partly by a soft consumer environment and a highly competitive QSR landscape. Global comparable sales fell 5.7% in Q2 and North American comps fell 8.3%.

"In this highly competitive environment, we recognize the importance of protecting share of voice on mass channels, while still supporting a balanced channel mix to reach customers where they engage most," President and CEO Todd Penegor said on the earnings call. "Maximizing the impact of our marketing investment requires balancing broad national awareness with local relevance."

The co-ops that outperformed by 200 basis points

Earlier this year Papa Johns reestablished marketing co-ops across 50 U.S. markets, including most of its priority markets, to support more effective localized targeting and brand support.

The results were measurable: markets supported by co-ops and supplemental local spend outperformed other markets by 200 basis points, Penegor said. To extend that, the company will stand up a field marketing team and plans to reinstate co-ops across most of the system by year-end.

Rethinking aggregators

Papa Johns will also roll out a more focused third-party aggregator strategy to drive trial, optimizing its promotional approach and refining how national and local third-party marketing spend is allocated. More than 85% of the chain's sales come through digital channels including aggregators, and it is working to use new e-commerce and CRM platforms for personalization.

The two executives

Lyn-Sue joined Papa Johns in 2022 and served as interim CMO in 2024. He previously held global brand leadership and marketing roles at Popeyes, Restaurant Brands International and Bacardi, and was described as "instrumental" in the company's international expansion.

Bromberg joined in November 2024 and oversaw multiple activations designed to drive cultural relevance, including a tie-up with Pixar's "Toy Story 5" featuring four Pizza Planet pop-ups in key global locations. Those activations generated roughly 4 billion total earned media impressions and thousands of organic social posts, per Penegor.

What to take from it

Four billion earned impressions coexisted with comps down 8.3%. That combination is the context for the change. When buzz metrics and store traffic come apart, the company's answer was fundamentals — mass awareness plus local execution.

The lesson is not that cultural campaigns are wrong; it is that attention alone does not move traffic. Something like the co-op markets' 200-basis-point edge — a verifiable local performance difference — has to run alongside it. For a related example of turning customer participation into measurable behavior, see Domino's Pays Diners to Beta Test Its App.