Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2016 | Page 14

ANATOMY OF A BRAND
BY JOHN BOWIE

THEY’VE GOT THE MEAT!
How Arby’s reinvigorated its brand

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rby’s has come a long way in the
past few years. Over that time,
the legacy brand has launched
a series of innovative, meat-focused
menu items, including the sizzling
Brown Sugar Bacon sandwich
lineup, the most successful limited-time offer platform of 2015.
It was so tempting that we
even created a “Vegetarian
Support Hotline” for our
non-carnivorous guests who
were lured by the sandwich’s
“meaty goodness.”
This past year, we opened
69 new restaurants system-wide
including 60 new restaurants in
the U.S., the highest number since

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2008, and we completed more than 175
remodels. In December, we were proud to
reopen our doors in New York City after
nearly a decade, just a few steps from
Times Square. Adweek said it best: “If
you haven’t been inside an Arby’s lately,
you probably wouldn’t recognize
the place.”
This is what gets our guests
in the door: a meat-focused
menu, authentic marketing
activations, and new restaurant design innovations. But
what keeps guests coming
back time and again? Here are
the three lesser-known efforts that
helped Arby’s rebuild its brand and
thrive in the QSR industry:

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