Rhoten Brings Experience with Brands Including GroundTruth, Potbelly and Wendy’s
Dave’s Hot Chicken, a Nashville-style hot chicken franchise, has appointed Brandon Rhoten chief marketing officer. Rhoten leverages experience in driving growth and brand elevation, with prior leadership roles at the advertising platform GroundTruth and fast-food brands including Potbelly and Wendy’s.
While serving as CMO of GroundTruth, Rhoten worked closely with Dave’s Hot Chicken. That experience provided a firsthand look at the brand’s “lightning in a bottle” DNA, as he described it, combining a quality product and leadership team unafraid to take risks. “It’s a bold, no-holding-back brand, and those are the environments where I’ve always done my best work. This wasn’t just a job opening; it was the right next step in building a global icon.”
He said he looks forward to helping elevate Dave’s into a household name without losing the brand’s authenticity. “We’re moving from local pockets of hype to a consistent national presence. Marketing has to bring new guests to the table and keep the brand culturally relevant so we earn attention rather than just buying it.”
Bill Phelps, CEO of Dave’s Hot Chicken, said Rhoten is a great addition to the leadership team because of his extensive marketing background. “His experience building culturally relevant brands and driving real results will be invaluable as Dave’s continues its rapid growth across the United States and internationally,” Phelps said.
Marketing: Where Science Meets Soul
Rhoten described marketing as “the bridge between the science and the soul,” enabling franchise owners to capture customers’ attention and spark emotion. “It’s fascinating that humans form emotional bonds with inanimate objects,” he said. “My wife would kill me if I brought home the wrong brand of ketchup — that’s the power of brand at work. Marketing is art in the service of commerce. At Wendy’s and GroundTruth, I learned how to build that emotional connection and then ruthlessly measure the store-level traffic it generated. Dave’s is the perfect canvas for that: It demands big, loud marketing backed by hard analytics.”
He said franchisors should focus on two key priorities: “First, marketing is a promise — the restaurant experience has to deliver on it. Second, stop doing ‘activity’ and start driving ‘impact.’ Local marketing should generate clear, attributable traffic that complements the national brand voice. When the brand and operators are singing from the same songbook, the results are massive.”
Rhoten’s experience in franchising goes back to his childhood. “I grew up cleaning ice cream machines and doing inventory on Saturdays at the franchised restaurants my dad managed. It was the ultimate crash course in unit economics.”
About Dave’s Hot Chicken
Dave’s Hot Chicken began in 2017 when childhood friends Dave Kopushyan, Arman Oganesyan and Tommy Rubenyan launched the concept with $900 and a parking-lot pop-up. After quickly gaining traction and opening a brick-and-mortar location in East Hollywood, the brand partnered in 2019 with Wetzel’s Pretzels co-founder Bill Phelps and producer John Davis to franchise the concept.
The brand specializes in Nashville-style hot chicken tenders, sliders and bites with spice levels ranging from No Spice to Reaper. Each location also serves sides of kale slaw, mac & cheese and fries or cheese fries. The brand boasts high-profile investors, including Drake, Usher, Maria Shriver, Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Strahan.
