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Wendy’s said its restaurants had “too many” promotions over the summer and would scale back for the rest of the year.
“We learned that when we have too many priorities, we have none,” interim CEO Ken Cook told investors on its second-quarter earnings call before the opening bell on Friday.
The boss, who took over last month following Kirk Tanner’s departure for Hershey’s and is still chief financial officer, said the fast food chain’s summer promotions on drinks, breakfast, meal deals, and digital exclusives “looked great on paper as it had something for everyone.”
“However, the volume of initiatives made it challenging for our restaurant teams to execute effectively and sent too many different messages to our customers,” Cook said.
He said that for the rest of the year, the focus would be on Wendy’s chicken innovation, which includes a collaboration with Netflix for the second season of “Wednesday” and a new beverage lineup featuring cold brew offerings.
The fast-food giant reported its quarterly earnings, with earnings per share of $0.29, up 7.4% year-on-year, and revenue of $560.9 million, down 1.7%. Both figures beat analysts’ expectations of $0.25 and $555.52 million, respectively.
Shares in Wendy’s were up about 1.5% at 10:50 a.m. ET on Friday.
Data from the location intelligence and foot traffic data software firm Placer.ai found that, while visits to Wendy’s locations were still down 3% compared to the same quarter last year, the chain improved from Q1, which saw a 4.7% decrease in foot traffic year-on-year.
Business Insider previously reported that Wendy’s would be increasing its use of voice AI to take orders at its drive-thrus, expanding the technology to as many as 600 restaurants by the end of 2025.
For several years, the chain has been testing ways to reimagine its drive-thru service, including testing robots that deliver food in underground tunnels to one of its restaurants in 2023.
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