Smashburger debuted a new brand campaign on Tuesday, featuring a redesigned logo. And this time executives insist it will stick.
The new color scheme, logo and branding come as parts of a new campaign with a message encouraging customers to try its burgers, hot dogs and fries with a statement, “Let the flavor do the talking.”
Executives said they want to reclaim the brand’s quality position within the burger category. “We’ve somewhat drifted over the years,” Jim Sullivan, CEO of Smashburger, said in an interview with Restaurant Business. “This brings us back to the core of what the brand was built around, and that’s taste.”
But the Denver-based chain also hopes to do something else with its new branding: Make its branding more consistent over its more than 200 locations.
Smashburger’s new logo will be its fifth logo in its history, and not all the brand’s locations have been updated. And at least one of the chain’s logo changes ran into legal headaches. In 2024, the slider chain Smalls Sliders sued Smashburger over trademark infringement, citing Smashburger’s “S” logo.
“We are fully committed to this, all the way up to our chairman,” Sullivan said. “This is our logo.”
The logo in fact returns at least somewhat to the original Smashburger coloration, with a red-and-white Smashburger over a black background, moving away from the orange and maroon that had been common of late. “That was the inspiration for us to say, ‘This resonates, let’s modernize it,’” Sullivan said. “And then we went out and consumer-tested it, and our hypothesis was correct.”
Smashburger was founded in 2007 by the former owners of the Quiznos sandwich chain and grew rapidly during the Great Recession when better burgers were hot. By 2015 the Philippines-based Jollibee Foods Corp. bought a 40% stake in the brand, looking for a U.S. foothold. It bought a controlling stake three years later.
Some of Smashburger's previous logos.
Yet the chain has had its share of challenges. System sales declined going into the pandemic and have never recovered. Last year, the brand generated $232.9 million in system sales, about $100 million less than the brand did the year before Jollibee took full control.
Last year was difficult. U.S. system sales fell 7.8%, according to Technomic. Unit count declined 8.1% and average-unit volumes fell 2.5%.
The company has boasted a strong summer, however, boosted by a combination of higher-end menu items, including the Brisket Burger, which features two patties, smoked brisket, bacon, cheddar cheese, barbecue sauce and pickles. The brand also has a $4.99 menu.
Smashburger hopes its new brand campaign and positioning will build on that success. “It’s basically a challenge to our current and future customers to basically believe that their next bite is going to convince them it’s the best-tasting food in the category,” Tom Ryan, Smashburger’s cofounder and an advisor to Jollibee, said in an interview.
“We think it’s time,” Ryan added. “We needed to get our feet on the ground through the summer, reinvigorating our innovation engine and making sure our stores were ready and tested. So Jim and I decided that as soon as we get this done, it was time to reproject the brand in the face of the consumer.”
Smashburger has updated its digital assets this week, including the chain’s menu boards. The company is working to convert its packaging to its new logo, which Sullivan said will take six to eight weeks, to give restaurants time to get through the old logo packaging.
Smashburger is currently working to convert signs on restaurants, starting with some non-traditional locations. Sullivan expects the conversion will ultimately take 12 to 18 months.
He also said franchisees are on board, which is key. In the U.S., franchisees operate 64 of the 194 locations the brand finished with in 2024, though executives want to rely more heavily on franchising going forward. “We brought them along the journey with us,” Sullivan said. “The support and the appreciation and acceptance has been great.”
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