Jenna Bromberg inherits one of America’s most recognizable fast-food brands, but recognition is no longer translating into growth. With declining sales, shrinking restaurant numbers, increasingly price-conscious consumers and a competitive landscape that has fundamentally changed, the challenge facing Arby’s new marketing chief goes far beyond creating another memorable advertising campaign.
When Brand Recognition Stops Being Enough
Few restaurant brands have managed to establish a marketing identity as distinctive as Arby’s. Its unapologetic celebration of meat, irreverent advertising and unmistakable brand voice have helped it occupy a recognizable position in American fast-food culture for decades. But being recognizable and being relevant are two very different things, and the widening distance between those realities may be the greatest challenge awaiting incoming Chief Marketing Officer Jenna Bromberg.
Bromberg, who takes over on November 2 following a nearly two-year stint leading marketing at Papa Johns, arrives at a particularly difficult moment for the 62-year-old restaurant chain. Arby’s is losing sales, closing locations and struggling to maintain its place in a quick-service restaurant industry where consumers are increasingly questioning the value of eating out. The problems are significant, but they also make Arby’s one of the more interesting brand turnaround opportunities in American marketing.
The challenge is not simply to make Arby’s advertising more effective. It is to translate the brand’s considerable cultural recognition into renewed consumer demand, stronger customer relationships and a more compelling reason to choose Arby’s over an increasingly crowded field of competitors.
The Numbers Behind the Marketing Problem
Arby’s difficulties are not simply a matter of perception. They are showing up in the financial performance of the business, and the trajectory suggests that the brand’s challenges extend well beyond a disappointing quarter or an unsuccessful promotional campaign.
Following years of relatively consistent growth, Arby’s experienced a 6.3% decline in U.S. systemwide sales in 2024, followed by another 2% decline in 2025, leaving annual sales at approximately $4.24 billion. The restaurant chain also closed a net 100 U.S. locations in 2025, following 48 net closures the previous year, while additional closures have continued into 2026.
These figures become particularly concerning when viewed against the broader performance of Inspire Brands, the restaurant conglomerate that owns Arby’s alongside Dunkin’, Sonic, Jimmy John’s, Buffalo Wild Wings and Baskin-Robbins. While the entire quick-service sector has faced pressure from inflation and changing consumer behavior, Arby’s has been among the weaker performers within its corporate family.
For Bromberg, this creates an uncomfortable reality familiar to marketing leaders tasked with reversing declining brands. Advertising can influence awareness, consideration and purchase frequency, but it cannot independently solve deteriorating restaurant economics, inconsistent customer experiences or a value proposition that consumers no longer find compelling.
The first challenge, therefore, is determining how much of Arby’s problem is actually a marketing problem. The answer will shape everything from the brand’s creative strategy and product positioning to its promotional calendar and relationships with franchise operators.
The Brand Awareness Trap
Arby’s has something many struggling brands would spend enormous amounts of money trying to acquire: a distinctive identity. Its long-running “We Have the Meats” positioning is immediately recognizable, while its unconventional advertising has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to generate attention far beyond its media investment.
From playful cultural commentary to absurdist product promotions, Arby’s has historically understood that entertainment can be an effective way to differentiate an otherwise ordinary fast-food transaction. But distinctive advertising can become a liability when the brand identity it creates begins to overshadow the actual product experience.
Consumers know Arby’s sells meat. They know the brand is different from McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s, and they probably know its roast beef sandwiches and curly fries, even if they have not visited an Arby’s restaurant in years.
What is considerably less clear is whether consumers know why they should choose Arby’s for lunch today. That distinction matters because awareness is only valuable when it creates a meaningful advantage during the purchasing decision.
A brand can dominate cultural memory while gradually disappearing from consumers’ regular consideration sets, particularly when more convenient, affordable or fashionable competitors are constantly providing reasons to visit. Bromberg needs to determine whether Arby’s distinctive personality still drives purchase intent or has become an entertaining reminder of a restaurant consumers rarely consider.
The solution is unlikely to be abandoning the brand’s existing identity. Instead, the opportunity lies in connecting that identity more directly to contemporary eating occasions, consumer motivations and product experiences that can convert familiarity into actual restaurant visits.
The Value Problem Nobody Can Advertise Away
Perhaps the most immediate challenge facing Arby’s is the changing economics of American fast food. For decades, quick-service restaurants operated on a relatively straightforward consumer proposition: affordable food, delivered quickly and conveniently.
That positioning has become increasingly difficult to sustain as rising labor costs, ingredient prices and operating expenses have pushed menu prices higher, while financially pressured consumers have become more selective about discretionary spending. The result is a market in which traditional fast-food chains increasingly compete not just against one another, but against grocery stores, convenience retailers and the option of eating at home.
Arby’s occupies a particularly complicated position within this environment. Its emphasis on substantial sandwiches, premium meats and more elaborate menu offerings creates an expectation of a different product experience from a conventional burger chain.
That differentiation can justify a higher price, but only when consumers believe the quality, portion size and overall experience deliver sufficient value. When household budgets tighten, however, the difference between a reasonably priced sandwich and an expensive fast-food meal becomes increasingly difficult to communicate.
Arby’s has already attempted to address this pressure through value-oriented promotions, including its Meat & 3 offerings, bundled meals and limited-time sandwich deals. These initiatives acknowledge the problem, but they also raise a more fundamental strategic question about whether the brand can compete effectively on affordability without undermining the premium associations that make it distinctive.
For Bromberg, the answer cannot simply be more discounts. Price promotions may temporarily improve traffic, but repeated discounting can train consumers to avoid paying full price while eroding the margins that franchisees need to sustain their businesses.
Worse, it risks reducing a brand with a distinctive product identity to another participant in an increasingly undifferentiated fast-food price war. The more valuable opportunity is to redefine what value means for Arby’s customers.
That could involve communicating the substance and quality of its sandwiches more effectively, developing compelling meal combinations or identifying occasions where consumers are willing to pay slightly more for a genuinely satisfying experience. The goal should be to make Arby’s feel worth the money rather than merely cheaper than it was yesterday.
The Problem With Being Different
Arby’s has spent decades distinguishing itself from the conventional American fast-food burger. That positioning helped the brand carve out a recognizable niche, but differentiation can also create limitations when consumer preferences, competitive offerings and purchasing occasions evolve.
A meat-centric identity is memorable, but it does not necessarily communicate versatility. Consumers may associate Arby’s with roast beef, substantial sandwiches and occasional indulgence without considering it a natural destination for the everyday meals that drive consistent restaurant traffic.
This creates a strategic tension between protecting what makes the brand distinctive and expanding the number of occasions when consumers consider visiting. The chain has experimented with chicken sandwiches, cheesesteaks, brisket offerings and other menu innovations intended to broaden its appeal.
While these products can generate excitement, expanding the menu does not automatically expand the brand’s relevance, particularly when consumers already associate competing restaurants with those categories. Arby’s cannot simply become another chicken sandwich destination and expect consumers to abandon their existing preferences.
Instead, Bromberg needs to establish a clearer relationship between the brand’s core proposition and the broader menu. That means understanding which products reinforce Arby’s competitive advantage, which genuinely attract new customers and which merely add complexity to an already challenging restaurant operation.
The distinction is critical because menu innovation should create additional reasons to visit without making the brand harder to understand. For marketers, this is one of the most difficult aspects of managing a mature brand, as the characteristics that once made a company successful can become constraints on future growth.
Arby’s needs to expand what consumers believe the brand can offer without losing the clarity that makes it recognizable. Doing so requires a more sophisticated approach to product storytelling than simply introducing new sandwiches and hoping consumers respond.
Winning Back the Customer Who Stopped Visiting
One of the most important questions Bromberg will need to answer is not why consumers dislike Arby’s, but why so many apparently indifferent consumers have stopped making it part of their routines. There is a meaningful difference between a brand that suffers from negative sentiment and one that gradually becomes less relevant to everyday purchasing decisions.
The former requires rebuilding trust, while the latter demands renewed consideration, stronger habits and more compelling reasons to return. Arby’s may face elements of both, but its established brand recognition suggests that improving visit frequency among existing and lapsed customers could represent a significant growth opportunity.
This is where the traditional distinction between brand marketing and performance marketing becomes increasingly unhelpful. A memorable advertising campaign can remind consumers that Arby’s exists, but the business needs a more sophisticated understanding of which audiences are most likely to respond, which occasions create demand and which experiences encourage customers to return.
Bromberg’s background in digital marketing, consumer insights and loyalty provides a potentially valuable foundation for this work. The opportunity is to move beyond treating loyalty programs as promotional distribution systems and start using customer relationships to understand actual behavior.
That includes identifying the products that drive repeat visits, the incentives that change purchasing patterns and the reasons customers who previously visited regularly eventually disappeared. Personalization can support that effort, but only when it delivers something more meaningful than another discount notification.
The strongest loyalty strategies make customers feel that a brand understands their preferences and provides a consistently rewarding experience. For Arby’s, that means using digital engagement to strengthen the restaurant relationship rather than simply increasing the frequency of promotional messages.
The Restaurant Experience Is Part of the Brand
One of the most persistent weaknesses in modern marketing is the assumption that brand perception can be managed independently of the experience consumers actually receive. For restaurant chains, that separation is particularly dangerous because the gap between an advertising promise and the physical experience is immediately apparent.
Consumers may encounter an entertaining advertisement, respond to an appealing menu promotion and decide to visit a restaurant, only to find an experience that fails to meet the expectations created by the marketing. Slow service, inconsistent food quality, outdated locations or disappointing value can quickly erase the goodwill generated by even the strongest creative campaign.
Arby’s shrinking restaurant footprint makes this issue especially relevant. Closures can reflect a range of operational and economic factors, and declining unit counts do not automatically mean every remaining restaurant is underperforming.
Nevertheless, a contracting footprint creates practical challenges for brand accessibility, customer convenience and the perception of business momentum. It also makes the relationship between corporate marketing and franchise operators particularly important.
Franchisees are responsible for delivering the experience that national advertising promises, while marketing leaders depend on those operators to convert consumer interest into profitable transactions. If the economic realities of running an Arby’s restaurant are not aligned with the brand’s promotional strategy, even successful campaigns can create tension rather than sustainable growth.
Bromberg will need to approach marketing as part of a broader commercial system, working closely with operations, menu development and franchise leadership. Her predecessor, Jeff Baker, is moving into a role focused on category management and culinary innovation, creating an opportunity for particularly close alignment between the products Arby’s develops and the stories the brand tells about them.
That relationship could prove more consequential than any individual advertising campaign. A brand turnaround becomes considerably more achievable when marketing, operations and product innovation are working toward the same commercial objectives rather than pursuing separate measures of success.
The Competition Has Changed the Rules
Arby’s is also competing in a restaurant market that looks considerably different from the one in which its most recognizable marketing platform was established. Traditional burger chains remain formidable competitors, but the competitive landscape now includes increasingly sophisticated chicken concepts, fast-casual sandwich operators, digitally optimized restaurant brands and convenience retailers expanding their prepared-food offerings.
Consumers have more choices, more ordering options and more opportunities to compare prices than ever before. At the same time, many successful restaurant brands have become particularly effective at creating cultural relevance around individual products and limited-time experiences.
Menu launches are increasingly designed to generate social conversation, while digital loyalty ecosystems allow competitors to convert attention into measurable customer relationships. This places Arby’s in an unusual position because the brand has historically been very good at generating cultural attention, but the next phase of competition requires connecting that attention to repeatable commercial outcomes.
A viral campaign that creates millions of impressions is considerably less valuable if consumers remain unconvinced that Arby’s deserves a place in their regular dining rotation. The challenge is not simply to make Arby’s advertising more contemporary, but to make the restaurant itself feel more relevant to contemporary consumer behavior.
That may require more targeted product innovation, stronger digital ordering experiences, greater emphasis on convenience and a more sophisticated understanding of how different audiences define a satisfying fast-food experience. Most importantly, it requires recognizing that the competitive set is no longer determined exclusively by what appears on the menu.
Arby’s is competing for occasions, habits and disposable income, not just sandwich preferences. Any successful marketing strategy must begin with that broader understanding of the choices consumers are making.
The Inspire Brands Advantage — and Complication
Bromberg’s appointment also comes as Inspire Brands considers a potential initial public offering, adding another dimension to the pressure surrounding Arby’s performance. Within a portfolio that includes some of America’s most recognizable restaurant businesses, Arby’s occupies an important but increasingly challenging position.
Its declining sales and shrinking footprint contrast with the growth opportunities available elsewhere in the group, creating a clear incentive to demonstrate that the brand can return to sustainable expansion. At the same time, the corporate structure offers meaningful advantages that an independent restaurant chain might struggle to replicate.
Inspire Brands has access to extensive consumer data, digital infrastructure, operational expertise and experience managing multiple restaurant concepts. Those resources can help Arby’s accelerate improvements that might otherwise require substantial investment and organizational change.
But scale also introduces complications, particularly when shared technology and centralized capabilities begin influencing how individual brands approach their customers. Standardized marketing infrastructure can create efficiencies, yet it does not automatically produce distinctive brand experiences.
There is always a risk that centralized systems encourage brands to adopt similar approaches to personalization, loyalty and promotional activity, even when their audiences and competitive positions require different strategies. For Bromberg, the opportunity is to use the advantages of a large restaurant portfolio without allowing those efficiencies to dilute what makes Arby’s different.
That distinction will become increasingly important if Inspire moves toward public ownership, where investor expectations could place additional emphasis on measurable growth, profitability and operating performance. The temptation in that environment is to prioritize marketing initiatives that produce immediate results, even when the underlying business requires a longer-term transformation.
But Arby’s needs more than a temporary traffic improvement. It needs to rebuild the consumer behaviors that create sustained demand, and that requires balancing short-term commercial performance with longer-term brand development.
A New CMO Cannot Fix Everything — But She Can Change the Conversation
Bromberg arrives with experience across several consumer-facing industries, including leadership positions at Papa Johns, Yum Brands, Carter’s and Hilton. That background offers exposure to many of the disciplines Arby’s now needs, from product innovation and commercial strategy to loyalty, customer experience and brand positioning.
But experience alone does not guarantee a successful turnaround, particularly when the challenges extend across pricing, operations, consumer behavior and competitive positioning. The real test will be whether Bromberg can establish a more commercially productive relationship between Arby’s marketing and the rest of the business.
That begins with a clear understanding of why consumers choose the brand, why others avoid it and what would persuade lapsed customers to return. It also requires distinguishing between activities that generate temporary excitement and those that fundamentally improve the frequency and profitability of customer visits.
The most meaningful early indicators may therefore have little to do with advertising awards, social engagement or campaign impressions. Instead, marketers should watch for improvements in comparable restaurant sales, customer traffic, repeat purchase behavior, promotional efficiency and the ability of new menu offerings to generate sustained demand rather than short-lived curiosity.
These are the measures that will determine whether Arby’s is rebuilding its business or simply becoming more effective at promoting a declining one. They also represent the kind of commercial accountability increasingly expected of CMOs across every consumer-facing industry.
The Bigger Lesson for Marketers
There is a broader marketing lesson embedded in Arby’s current predicament, and it extends far beyond the restaurant industry. For years, marketers have celebrated distinctiveness as one of the most important characteristics of successful brands.
Arby’s demonstrates why that principle remains valuable, but also why it is insufficient when separated from relevance, accessibility and a compelling consumer proposition. A brand can have a recognizable voice, memorable creative assets and decades of accumulated cultural equity while still struggling to persuade consumers to spend money.
The uncomfortable truth is that consumers do not reward brands simply for being distinctive. They reward brands that deliver something they want, at a price they consider reasonable, in a way that fits their lives.
Distinctiveness helps consumers recognize the choice, but relevance gives them a reason to make it. For Arby’s, that distinction may define the next chapter of its history.
Bromberg does not need to reinvent the brand’s personality or abandon the irreverence that helped establish its place in American advertising. She needs to connect those strengths to a clearer, more compelling commercial proposition that can survive in a market where consumer loyalty is increasingly conditional.
The opportunity is substantial because Arby’s is not starting from obscurity. It has an established identity, a recognizable product portfolio, a national restaurant network and the resources of one of the world’s largest restaurant groups.
What it lacks is evidence that those advantages are currently producing the growth the business needs. For a new CMO, that is both the attraction and the danger of the assignment.
Arby’s already has the meats, the memorable advertising and the brand recognition. Jenna Bromberg’s challenge is to make sure it still has the customers.