Stuart Elliott: With Papa John's, Madison Avenue Seems to Draw a Line

Schnatter is the founder and principal pitchman of the Papa John39s pizza chain and his recent behavior misbehavior actually has caused a considerable amount of trouble for him and the firm that bears his nameamp160 But something worthwhile may be emerging from the havoc he has wreakedSchnatter first raised a ruckus in November when he claimed that the national anthem protests against racism and police brutality among National Football League players were hurting Papa John39s a league official sponsor since 2010amp160 White supremacists angry with the players mostly AfricanAmerican who have been leading the protests praised Schnatter39s remarks forcing the company to declare that it wanted no business from such customersamp160 Soon after Schnatter stepped down as chief executive officer and not long after the NFL dumped Papa John39s as its pizza purveyor in favor of Pizza HutFast forward to last month when an article on the Forbes website revealed that Schnatter had made racially charged remarks including the Nword during a conference call with Laundry Service a marketing agency working for Papa John39s on assignments like creating ads The article described the call as part of the agency39s efforts to work with Schnatter on his communications skills to help prevent future media flaps over what he saysLaundry Service was right Schnatter clearly needs such trainingamp160 But Casey Wasserman who owns the agency decided that wouldn39t be his responsibility any moreamp160 After hearing about the call Forbes reported he moved to end Laundry Service39s contract with Papa John39sSchnatter apologizedamp160and resigned as chairman of the board but that didn39t keep other shops on the Papa John39s agency roster from one by one distancing themselves from him and the companyamp160amp160Olson Engage which handled public relations duties resignedamp160 So did Fallon which had succeeded Laundry Service on creative tasksamp160 Also beating a retreat was Initiative responsible for media planning and buying a surprise since Initiative earlier had decided to remain on the rosterUnderscoring how serious those decisions were is that all those agencies have parent companiesamp160 Olson Engage is part of ICF International Fallon is owned by Publicis and Initiative is a unit of Interpublic Groupamp160 Perhaps executives higher up on corporate ladders needed to be told what the agencies wanted to do before it could be doneamp160 Perhaps those higherups had to agree that Schnatter39s sins were grave enough to warrant walking awayAnd the stocks of all three parent companies are traded publicly meaning there could have been financial implications to telling a big client to go fly a kiteamp160 What if investors had started dumping the shares they owned in ICF or Publicis or Interpublic worried that a rash of account resignations wouldn39t be healthy for the bottom lineamp160 Wall Street has done stranger thingsIt39s hard to remember when so many agencies bolted from a client at once or for the ending of a clientagency relationship to generate so much publicityamp160 The examples I can recall involve a single shop at a time finding itself in an account review it deemed unexpected if not unjustified the agency pulled out thereby resigning the accountamp160 Examples include Ammirati ampamp Puris and BMW BBDO and Delta Air Lines Grey and Domino39s Pizza and Cliff Freeman ampamp Partners and Little Caesarsamp160 Hey what is it with the fraught relations between pizza purveyors and their agenciesamp160And while no shop severing ties with Schnatter and Papa John39s mounted a soapbox to explain itself the most upfront was Wasserman who according to Bloomberg News attributed the breakup to quotregrettable recent eventsquot with quota client39s executivequot it39s clear from the context and the unusual nature of their actions that they were taking a stand on principleThey all must be happy about that too given Schnatter39s most recent steps which included recanting his apology attacking Laundry Service asserting he was pressured to resign as chairman and vowing to fight his company39s steps to put him in the rearview mirror such as removing him from Papa John39s adsTo quote a line from quotSweet Smell of Successquot Schnatter has the scruples of a guinea pig and the morals of a gangsteramp160 He and Papa John39s are just lucky there39s so much else going on these days that keeps his misdeeds from drawing more criticismPapa John39s has been able to sign up one replacement agency with Madison Avenue roots a public affairs firm called Powell Tate part of the Weber Shandwick unit of Interpublic which will be working on communications strategyamp160 But it speaks volumes that when Papa John39s announced last week the hiring of another creative agency of record it was no one from Madison Avenue but rather Endeavor Global Marketing a division of the Endeavor firm that specializes in areas like brand strategy talent representation entertainment and sportsEndeavor recently hired a highprofile chief marketing officer an AfricanAmerican woman named Bozoma Saint John who previously worked for marketers such as Uber and Appleamp160 She told Adweek she was being guided by this questionamp160 quotHow can we as EGM not just create a new narrative based on a value proposition but convey what is truly inside Papa John39squotGood luck with thatamp160 Look inside Papa John39s or Papa John and you39ll probably find to paraphrase another line from quotSweet Smell of Successquot a pizza pie full of arsenicEditor39s Note Look for the next Stuart Elliott Report on Wednesday September 12amp160Click the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated 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Stuart Elliott: With Papa John's, Madison Avenue Seems to Draw a Line

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