Popeyes Ousts CMO Amid Prolonged Sales Slump

Marketing Chief and Two Others Dismissed

Matt Rubin lasted less than a year as Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen's chief marketing officer before the chain dismissed him, according to a system message reviewed by Nation's Restaurant News. He wasn't alone. Two other executives departed alongside him in what reads less like routine turnover and more like a company that ran out of patience.

Peter Perdue, Popeyes' U.S. and Canada president, delivered the news to staff himself, and he didn't soften it. "Our business performance, particularly sales and traffic, is not where we need to be," he wrote, adding that "despite significant effort across our organization and system, our results are falling short of what we believe Popeyes is capable of delivering." Barbara Linn, a longtime Burger King marketing executive, steps into an expanded role as VP of calendar, category, execution, and field marketing, one piece of a broader reshuffling meant to stop the bleeding.

Operations Work, Marketing Falls Short

Perdue was quick to draw a line between the product and the problem. "We have great food, deep brand equity, and loyal guests, and I believe Popeyes should be leading the chicken category in the U.S. and Canada," he told staff. That's a notable distinction, especially given his own history with the brand. Perdue came over from Burger King last year specifically to run Popeyes' operations, and by most accounts inside the system, that part of the job is working. Multiple operators told NRN this week that operations have genuinely improved. Marketing is where franchisees say the wheels have come off, and their frustration has been building for a year even as restaurants themselves have gotten sharper.

Perdue Takes On Marketing Personally

With no permanent CMO in place, Perdue says he'll personally absorb the gap, dedicating "a significant amount of my own attention" to the marketing team, agency partners, and franchisee advisors while a search gets underway. "We are committed to getting this right and finding someone who can successfully lead the marketing team's contribution to our brand's long-term growth," he said. To make room for that, he's handing day-to-day operations to COO Chris Padoan, freeing himself up to focus almost entirely on fixing the thing franchisees say is actually broken.

Franchisees Split on the Shakeup

One franchisee, granted anonymity to speak candidly, tied the marketing failure directly to how fast Popeyes has grown. Since the chain's breakout Chicken Sandwich moment in 2019, it has added roughly 1,000 new restaurants, many of them far outside its traditional Southern footprint. "We've got to have marketing and creative that resonates outside of central cities and the South and more broadly across the country," the operator said. "There are opportunities for us to execute. But we've got to tell people about this product." Another franchisee took a sunnier view of the shakeup itself, calling it something that "will definitely benefit the system" and noting that "in my opinion, change always brings out the good." Different tones, same underlying belief: the food works, and the marketing hasn't caught up to where the restaurants now are.

The Numbers Behind the Urgency

The numbers back up the urgency. Popeyes' same-store sales have declined in seven of the past eight quarters, a run that doesn't yet include the third quarter of this year. Parent company Restaurant Brands International reports third-quarter earnings Thursday morning, and the timing of this shakeup, arriving just days ahead of that release, is hard to read as coincidence. Given Perdue's language and the pattern already in place, it's reasonable to expect the streak may extend to eight of the last nine quarters, though that remains an inference until RBI confirms it.

A Familiar Script for RBI

None of this is new ground for RBI. The company has run this exact play twice before. In 2019, Tim Hortons president Axel Schwan shifted his focus to marketing during a leadership search that eventually landed Hope Bagozzi as CMO, handing operations to Mike Hancock (who has since moved on to lead Firehouse Subs as brand president). Last year, Burger King's Tom Curtis did the same thing, leaning on then-COO Perdue to keep operations steady while Curtis worked the marketing problem, a search that ended with Joel Yashinsky arriving from Applebee's. Both moves were followed by better sales momentum, and Burger King's same-store sales have been positive every quarter since. Perdue, having lived the Burger King version of this structure from the operations side, is now running the Popeyes version from the president's chair, which gives RBI something rarer than optimism: a template that's actually worked twice.

Marketing's Turn to Catch Up

Whether it works a third time should start to come into focus Thursday, when RBI's earnings land, and it'll come further into view once Popeyes names whoever ends up permanently leading the marketing function Perdue is steering in the meantime. The restaurants, by most accounts, are already pulling their weight. Now it's marketing's turn to catch up.