After Inspire Brands took Dunkin’ Brands Group private in October 2020 in an $11.3 billion deal, leaders at the coffee and donut chain came in with a chip on their shoulders. As by far the largest entity in the Inspire portfolio—more than 20,000 Dunkin’ and Baskin-Robbins stores and $11.5 billion in systemwide sales—the team at times felt like it knew best and should be leading the way, said Kate Jaspon, at the time Dunkin’s chief financial officer.
Instead, being open to learning through the integration process would prove key to the evolution of Inspire as a whole.
“We put our egos aside and we listened,” said Jaspon as she discussed her journey during a session at the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference in Las Vegas November 12. Jaspon, who in 2021 became Atlanta-based Inspire’s CFO, noted at the time of the transaction Dunkin’ was in a rush to relaunch its loyalty program but was encouraged by counterparts at its new owner to pause and absorb the successes of other concepts under the umbrella before moving ahead.
“Each of those brands had experience in things we may not be experts in,” she said, such as the delivery prowess of Jimmy John’s. Also in the Inspire portfolio are Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings and Sonic Drive-In.
The restaurant industry, she continued, is essentially the last remaining consumer-facing industry to go through this transition with the consolidation of chains as part of multi-brand platforms, coupled with vast technology changes that require an ability to learn and pivot.
Now, more than four years after the acquisition of Dunkin’, Inspire is able to flex what Jaspon described as its “matrix model,” an approach to shared services intended to maximize areas such as supply chain, franchise sales, IT and marketing. Inspire last fall realigned its corporate structure, promoting Scott Murphy to chief brand officer and Dan Lynn to chief commercial and restaurant officer.
As supplier contracts for individual brands expired, for example, Inspire has been able to leverage improved purchasing power for all its concepts. “Supply chain was a huge synergy for us,” said Jaspon. The media buying advantage has similarly improved.
Inspire has $1 billion in media buying power, she continued, and “with the support of our franchisees, we can collectively purchase contracts.” That means instead of Buffalo Wild Wings buying football-related media spots on its own, Inspire has the contract and the subsequent flexibility to switch in advertising for its others brands as needed.
On the real estate front, while cobranded locations aren’t part of the strategy, “our real estate and construction team is working to figure out how to get multiple versions of our platforms on one pad or one piece of dirt,” said Jaspon. That could mean putting a Dunkin’ and a Jimmy John’s on one site because their peak hours are complementary.
“Seventy-five percent of all Americans will touch one of our restaurants this year,” she noted, with Inspire as a whole looking now at new ways to better tap into that brand reach. Inspire has more than 2,000 company-operated restaurants and so is able to glean a massive amount of data from those stores, along with those operated by franchisees, she added.
“We learn a lot from the Arby’s consumer that helps us out with Baskin or Dunkin’,” she said, while other brands are able to learn from Dunkin’s digital sales success. “Loyalty has been huge. Dunkin’ has been leading that. This year, 33 percent of our sales in the United States will come from digital.”
The volatility in the restaurant space is very real, she acknowledged, as brands face ongoing cost and margin pressures and consumers pull back on restaurant spending.
“This year’s been tough for pretty much every consumer-facing industry,” said Jaspon, but her advice to the RFDC audience was to remain calm. “Knowing that the restaurant industry is resilient and we will make it through. Don’t panic and don’t rush to discount everything away.”
The Restaurant Finance & Development Conference, presented by the Restaurant Finance Monitor, Franchise Times and Food On Demand, runs through November 13 at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.