Franchise Update Magazine Issue IV, 2015 | Page 19

ANATOMY OF A BRAND
rant space, in that they contain virtually
no text. How do we get away with that?
Simple: we replaced text-heavy boards
with big photos of our most popular
items. Children can simply point at what
they want, and parents love that, leading to an enjoyable in-store experience.
In 2014, we digitized our menu boards
and added animation. They show our
animated bakers creating some of our
most popular products in a fun way, like
a ninja slicing dough to create Wetzel
Bitz, or pepperonis being launched from
a cannon to create our Pepperoni Twist
Pretzel. It’s another way we’re innovating
within our area of expertise. By the end of
2015, the digital menu boards will be in
25 percent of all Wetzel’s locations, and
we’re seeing a measurable bump in sales
in locations that use them.
Listening and reacting
What we have done throughout our 22-year
history is listen to our guests and, above all,
to franchisees, to make updates, product introductions, and refreshes where it aligned

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with our brand and showed additional profitability for our operators. Case in point: If
you walked into a Wetzel’s Pretzels today,
almost two-thirds of the available products
were not in-store when we launched the
company more than 20 years ago, including some of our top sellers.
I enjoy speaking with franchisees about
how we can continue to drive the company forward, and we’ve had some great
ideas come out of these candid conversations. At the end of the day, Wetzel’s
is a fun, irreverent brand, and we pride
ourselves on being the category innovator. As the saying around here goes, we
take our pretzels seriously, not ourselves,
and everything we do, from new product
introductions to store design and guest
interaction, reflects that. Being true to
our original brand position and keeping
it top of mind when pursuing success cannot be overstated, whether applying it to
one singular element or system-wide. n
Bill Phelps is the co-founder and CEO of
Wetzel’s Pretzels.

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