Wendy’s is struggling as low-income consumers cut back

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Struggling. Yeah, they cut their global sales forecast. They cite
economic uncertainty, heightened competition, and especially their lower income income consumers.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Okay, so this is like the world we live in
is fascinating, isn't weird? As Like you get older, the
things you remember? Just why do I remember this? Why
don't I remember other things?

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Whatever? I remember?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Most people know my radio mentor the guy that I
think had the biggest impact on me is legendary j Baker,
who is best known from his years with Bob and
Tom and Q ninety five and Jay Stilling Unit five.
And Jay was very young in this business, saw something
in me and took me under his wing and I
used to sit for hours on the weekend with him,
and he was gracious and he would and we would

(01:00):
talk about radio, and you would teach me things about
the business, and we would talk about all sorts of
things with life. And one of the things my job
to do with Jay on the weekends was to go
get the lunch. That was my job. And we used
to we had the radio stations in Brownsborg, so was
right near the interstate, and we used to like laugh
about like how fast food restaurants near an interstate, a

(01:22):
crowded interstate like the one in Brownsburg should basically be
a money printing factory. Like if you're a named chain
off a crowded interstate, and this is you know, early
two thousands, right, so totally different world. But how could
you fail if you're Wendy's or RB's or McDonald's or
Burger King like and you're off a crowded interestate of
any sort, How could you possibly fail? And yet in

(01:45):
the modern climate in which we live that you know,
we were saying, like, wouldn't it be great if you
could just own the Wendy's off the interstate in Brownsburg
that Wendy's is. I think I had all sorts of
problems over the past several years, but now it's like
the economy is so bizarro, and whether it's getting workers
or people to show up, or what you could pay them,

(02:06):
or how people's buying habits have changed. We now live
in a world where even a megafranchise.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Like what Wendys were struggling, well, I think, and you
hit on it right there. They say that their sales
improved a little in May and June, and that was
because they had new frosty something or another, but overall
demand hasn't recovered and it's been much slower than what
they expected. They said that their breakfast sales have lagged

(02:33):
behind other day parts because consumers are choosing to skip
or eat breakfast at home because of financial pressure.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, and I.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Think it used to be that in a pre inflation,
pre COVID world where we still put See, part of
the problem with COVID was they devalued work.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
They told you stay home. You can stay home, it
doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, your work doesn't matter, right, And people it got
ingrained in a system, especially amongst younger people who saw
this and thought, well, staying home as a way of
life that they don't feel the onus quality young people
to go out and get jobs younger right, like high
school kids or whatever who run a lot of these fast.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Food restaurants, etc. Help run them, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
And so now you have to pay so much to
get quality people in certainly an adult of any sort,
that your price point can't match what it pays to
get people in there.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
And so as a result, you're stuck in.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
This bizarre world where you can't make the you struggle
to make it work. We're now off a crowded interstate.
Fast food restaurants somehow are managing to struggle.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
McDonald's has seen a rebound. They expanded their value menu
and that has brought some of their lower income customers back.
Wendy's also offers a value option, but they're saying maybe
they're not marketing it correctly, which costs money. You know,
they got to get the word out that they've got it.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
You know, the history of Wendy's is fascinating too. It
was weird my wife and I were just talking about
because she went to Wendy's the other day and we
were talking about that. She was ignoring me. I was talking,
but I was telling her about the history of Wendy's.
Is fascinating because obviously Dave Thomas is the face the
founder of Wendy's, but the growth of Wendy's came in
a post Dave Thomas era. He owned Wendy's. He was

(04:32):
the founder of Wendy's. That's his daughter, that's on the billboards.
But the explosive growth of Wendy's came in a post
Dave Thomas is the guy who owns and runs the
show era and Wendy's was in a lot of trouble
in the nineteen would have been the early eighties, in
the pre where's the Beef commercial, and they came up
with this brilliant commercial and it sparked these massive sales

(04:55):
and they became a you know, this juggernaut off of that.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Added it's so weird, how.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, Whitmer's Rights indie reporter, Wendy's value selection stinks. He's right,
that's part of the problem.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, Wendy's used to have that double seven five dollars
biggie bag.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, but it's it's not it's not. It's not as
good as some of the other places. Right, it's you know,
it's got the I think of what it's got, chicken nuggets.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
The double stack, the fry, and the drink.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, it's the bacon, cheeseburger, fries, nuggets and drinks.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Okay, very good. These have the double stack on the value.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Any point on all of this is Wendy's has had
a somewhat tumultuous, you know history in terms of highs
and lows, peaks and valleys, and it seems like they
are really struggling right now.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Well, it's when they used the marketing where's the beef?
That's when it turned around for him, right, Yeah, And
clearly their message right now is it's not good.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
And I think you're in a world now where it
used to be one great ad campaign can could save you.
You can come up with something that even if the
product is struggling, if your ad campaign is good enough,
you can.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Make it work.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
And I think we're so fractured as society and how
in terms of how people consume information, where they consume information.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
That we don't.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
It's like movies, right there was always moved the blockbuster
event in the summer, and there were you know, McDonald's
had something whether whether it's Batman or Ghostbusters or whatever.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
That's all. It's all gone now that doesn't exist any.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
And you're talking about the where's the beef commercial television commercial?

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Right that's not going to work today.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
They'd be better off if they could have something go
viral for them.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
And I just think the economy and these are with
this thing with Wendy's is a great example. I think
the economy is so upside down. And I think it's
a great example of politicians will lie and they'll spin,
but when Wendy's is struggling.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
That'll tell you what's going on out there.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
That's going to do it for us today. Thank you Rob,
thank you Kevin, thank you for listening. It's being Kendall
and Casey on ninety three WYBC.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Have a big dinner, have a light snack and you
know bag and you can't send it backt up meaning
and need it