Potbelly Corporation (NASDAQ:PBPB) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Matt Curtis: And then for the increased grant fund contribution, which hit the other operating expenses line. Could you run us through what that spend has been specifically earmarked for?

Steve Cirulis: Yes. Brand fund is, I mean, it’s marketing. So, it’s our media is 100% digital. It’s delivered back to the shops in an equitable fashion, that’s one of the reasons franchisees really appreciate how we manage the brand fund, because they know that they get their contributions redeployed into their markets. But it’s across the media channels. We’ve got, paid social. We’ve got digital. We’ve got, I should say, our web and our advertising that’s promotional activity and then promotional activations that we do for every one of our new products that get rolled out. We’ve got search engine optimization and the like, catering, advertising and so on. So, it’s across the spectrum what you would see in normal digital advertising for us.

We have started to experiment with some media expansion in there too, because again, we know that we’re even for what we’re investing and what we’re getting back, we know that there’s more that we can continue to pour in. So, we’ve got to do some experimentation along the way too.

Operator: The next question is a follow-up from Jeremy Hamblin with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Hamblin: Just want to make sure on for Q4, you’ve got a 14th week here. And just wanted to understand, I believe that that is kind of the holiday week post-Christmas. And to understand what the typical sales volumes look like in that week and how we should be thinking about the impact of that week on some of these line items, like occupancy and labor?

Steve Cirulis: I think there’s probably a few things going on. Number one, that week, for us anyway, includes Christmas and it includes New Year’s Eve. So it is going to be the way we would play it out, a lower volume week. So, you can imagine how that starts to flow through the rest of the P&L. So we don’t, it ends up being about it. If we have a seven-day week, normally it ends up being about a 5.5-day week. I think as we try to think about the adjustment in our P&L. Margins and so forth, I think you know, roughly be around the same. It’s not going to really impact those kinds of things, mostly volume.

Jeremy Hamblin: Got it. Thanks for taking the extra one.

Bob Wright: Yes, Jeremy, just a couple of specifics. One of the things that I think, Steve and his team do really well as we, when we look at something like this, we don’t get a free week of occupancy. We would’ve accrued or accounted for that with that 53rd week and spread that accordingly. And same thing with any of the other fixed costs. So, it puts a little sales pressure on there. But other than that, it’s just happens to us every five or six years, right.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of today’s question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Bob Wright for closing remarks.

Bob Wright: Thank you, operator, and thank you all again for your time this evening and for joining us. We appreciate the questions, the engagement and certainly look forward to talking again soon. Hope you all have a great night.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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