The Strategy Behind the Storyboard
What Denny's latest campaign reveals about marketing's role in business strategy.
Sometimes the most interesting thing about a marketing campaign isn't the creative. It's the business strategy hiding behind it.
A few days ago, I was walking past the TV and happened to catch one of Denny's new commercials, and at first, I honestly thought it was a parody. The grainy picture, laugh track, and the exaggerated acting. The sitcom-style opening sequence that looked as though it had been pulled straight from a mid-90s television lineup. It felt intentionally dated, almost exaggerated enough to be making fun of the era itself. Then I realized it wasn't a spoof. It was the campaign.
After spending more than thirty years in marketing, my first reaction wasn't whether I liked it. It wasn't whether the agency had done a good job. Instead, I found myself asking a much simpler question.
Why this? Why now?
The campaign felt so intentional that I couldn't believe it was simply a creative decision. So, like I often do when something catches my attention, I started digging.
The first thing I wanted to understand wasn't whether the campaign was "good" or "bad." I wanted to understand what the agency had actually been asked to accomplish, which is a very different question. The more I read, the more I realized this wasn't simply a new TV campaign. It was part of a much broader brand evolution. There were refreshed uniforms, updated packaging, restaurant remodels, a redesigned website, and a renewed emphasis on affordable meal deals. The commercials were simply the most visible part of a much larger effort. So far, everything made sense.
The agency described the campaign as a nostalgic return to the classic American diner; a place defined by warmth, comfort, and the kinds of conversations that happen around a booth. If you view it through that lens, the strategy is entirely understandable. Nostalgia can be remarkably powerful when it's grounded in genuine brand equity. Some of the strongest brand refreshes over the past decade have borrowed from history while still moving confidently into the future. Burger King revisited its heritage without feeling trapped by it. Dunkin' simplified its identity because the business itself had evolved. Coca-Cola continues to prove that familiarity and relevance aren't mutually exclusive.
Nothing about Denny's campaign struck me as irrational. In fact, the more I read, the more carefully considered it seemed. If I had stopped my research there, I probably would have concluded that this was simply another legacy brand leaning into nostalgia. But I didn't stop there. And that's when I began reading about the business itself.
Maybe it's just a cautious marketer's mind, but whenever I see a legacy brand leaning this heavily into nostalgia or complete revamp, I become curious.
In the last year, we've watched many brands move toward greater authenticity; less polish, more transparency. Highlight more founders, executives, employees, and more behind-the-scenes content, which made Denny's creative direction stand out even more to me. That doesn't automatically make Denny's wrong. If anything, it made me wonder whether I was evaluating the campaign against the wrong objective.
A Different Business Story
While the campaign focused on warmth and familiarity, the business itself has been navigating a very different reality. It’s been closing lagging stores, it faces changing consumer habits, and intense competition across family dining and fast casual. And none of those observations are unusual or criticisms. In fact, they're the kinds of challenges many mature brands face. Where things can get interesting is when private equity takes ownership, which is the case here.
Private equity firms aren't in the business of preserving nostalgia. They're in the business of allocating capital, improving enterprise value, and creating future options for the organizations they acquire. Sometimes that means investing aggressively, simplifying operations, or strengthening a business before deciding what comes next. That's simply how business works. If you look at the PE landscape, there are many cases where those firms have actually built long term brand collections in the restaurant sector.
At the end of the day, the agency's responsibility is different. Its job isn't to decide where the company is going. Its job is to express the strategy leadership has already chosen. Sometimes that assignment is growth. Sometimes it's protecting an existing business. Sometimes it's preparing the organization for whatever comes next. None of those objectives are inherently right or wrong, they’re just simply different assignments.
And that's where something clicked for me.
Maybe I Was Asking the Wrong Question
Up until that point, I had been evaluating the campaign the same way most marketers do; Did I like it? Did it feel current? Would younger consumers respond to it? Was nostalgia the right creative direction? Who “is” the audience?
Then I realized I was probably asking the wrong questions. Because those are creative questions. The more important question was this: What business problem was marketing actually being asked to solve?
That changes everything. Because we instinctively assume every campaign exists to drive growth. But businesses don't spend every season pursuing growth. Sometimes they're protecting profitability, strengthening franchise economics, simplifying operations. And in some cases, stabilizing the business before making larger strategic decisions. Those objectives require marketing to play a very different role.
Marketing Doesn't Decide the Assignment
This may sound odd coming from a marketing executive, but one misconception has followed marketing for decades. People assume marketing owns business strategy. It doesn't. Marketing responds to it. While exceptional marketing leaders are sometimes invited into those conversations, they're the exception rather than the rule.
Long before a creative brief is written, leadership has already made a series of decisions. They have or are deciding where the organization is headed, which customers matter the most, what success looks like to the P&L or shareholders, and how resources will be invested going forward.
Marketing doesn't create those priorities. It communicates them. And that's why marketing often gets criticized for decisions it never actually made. Let’s be honest; marketing didn't decide whether the business should prioritize growth over profitability. Marketing didn't determine whether new stores should open or existing ones should close. And marketing didn't establish the investment horizon.
Those decisions belong elsewhere. Marketing simply becomes one of their most visible expressions.
Three Different Assignments
The more I thought about Denny's, the more I found myself returning to a core set of ideas about marketing’s role that I have used for most of my career. And that is not all marketing serves the same purpose.
Some marketing builds the future, where organizations are introducing customers to new ideas, new products, new markets, and new possibilities.
Some marketing reinforces the present, where companies already possess healthy momentum. Marketing strengthens relationships they've spent years building while making thoughtful improvements along the way.
Then there's a third category, I think we almost never talk about; marketing that simply preserves value. This isn't lesser marketing, nor is it necessarily temporary.
Marketing’s role may be to protect cash flow, supporting franchisees, maintaining relevance among loyal customers, and very importantly, preserving enterprise value while leadership works through much larger strategic questions. Viewed through that lens, campaigns that initially seem confusing often begin making much more sense. I don’t think it’s not because they're automatically brilliant. Sometimes I think they are solving a different problem than we assumed. Don’t get me wrong, you can have all three of these approaches going on simultaneously in any organization, but sometimes marketing is charged with one of these very specific executions.
Denny's Isn't Really the Point
Whether Denny's campaign succeeds or fails is almost beside the point. I am sure the agency has research I'll never see, and leadership undoubtedly understands their business better than I do from the outside. This new campaign may ultimately prove to be exactly the right strategy. But that's not really what interests me. What interests me is how quickly we judge marketing without understanding the assignment it was given. I am guilty of it sometimes with my initial reactions, but every campaign begins long before the first storyboard is drawn.
Leadership establishes priorities, and business strategy follows. Then marketing develops a strategy that supports those priorities. Creative simply becomes the visible expression of everything that came before it. By the time we see a commercial, we're looking at the final chapter, not the first.
Looking Beyond the Campaign
The next time you see a campaign that feels confusing, dated, disconnected, or even disappointing, resist the temptation to critique the advertising first.
Become curious. Ask yourself a different question; what business decision happened long before anyone hired an agency? Because by the time the campaign reaches your TV, your inbox, your social feed, or your phone, marketing is no longer deciding where the company is going. It's showing you where leadership has already decided to go. I think sometimes the most interesting thing about a campaign isn't the campaign at all. It's the business strategy hiding underneath it.
Stay curious, my friends.
Perspective by Clint Allen | President & Founder, CLINTONSCOTT
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