** Shares of Papa John's International fall ~2% to $49.81 premarket

** Keybanc downgrades stock to "sector weight" from "overweight", says road to sales and profit recovery in the domestic business could be longer and windier than previously expected

** Says Q4 shaping up to be another difficult period, despite the modest improvement in recent same-store sales trends due to industry improvement and advertising investments

** Brokerage says advertising efforts are to find the right balance between innovation and value, without chasing competitors’ price points

** Notes that fixing PZZA may also require additional co-investment, and a partial unwind of its “Back to Better 2.0” strategy, which reduced franchisee advertising fund contributions and is slated to increase commissary rates over four years

** Nine of 18 brokerages rate the stock "buy" or higher and nine "hold"; with a median PT of $61.61 - LSEG data

** Up to Wednesday's close, stock down ~33% YTD

(Reporting by Neil J Kanatt in Bengaluru)

((Neil.JKanatt@thomsonreuters.com;))