Jen Quinlan

Restaurants (casual dining, QSR, etc.) have a tricky situation to navigate in the digital space. Franchisees desire to control local marketing while corporate struggles to maintain brand consistency at a national level.

In passive media like TV or radio spots, this isn’t that big of a deal. Spots run in local markets without reaching folks in other geographical areas. Where this turns into a messy situation is social - in particular Facebook.

Assume there is a regional QSR called Jen’s Burgers. Corporate structures a franchisee agreement to have local market folks control their regional advertising or marketing dollars. Franchisees pay a % of sales into the marketing ‘pot’. There is a regional board including various cabinet roles. The board meets once a quarter, locks on priorities or sales goals, work with a field rep from corporate on their local media plan, and they vote and execute. Corporate creates TV spots and radio spots that local guys leverage. Maybe they customize the last five seconds of the spot with a CTA pertinent to their local market - “Come on down to Jen’s Burgers at South Congress and Oltorf in Austin’.

Problem: Social - Local vs. National Mess

Now. Let’s talk what happens in the digital landscape. Many QSRs leverage online templated services like Fishbowl that serve as a promotional CMS so local markets can send out email blasts vs. corporate pushing national campaigns. Access to this tool is structured as a benefit of being under the franchise relationship.

In social, it gets a lot more complicated and cluttered.

• The franchisee perspective - Jen’s Burgers in Austin needs cost effective ways to drive traffic in-store. Social presents an opportunity to incur labor but not hard costs on pushing out messaging to a targeted (geo-targeted) audience. It also represents a “dream marketing medium” for restaurants as they have a perishable inventory. Say Jen’s burgers ordered too many apple pie desserts for the week. A promotion for 50% off apple pie on Thursday afternoon could be executed in a short turn to drive traffic and liquidate perishable inventory.
• The corporate perspective - JB Corporate has a different point of view. Their priority is driving revenue, building brand, and keeping franchisees happy. Social is a medium that it makes sense to put the keys to the car in local markets’ hands. Further more, to manage a program that had national and local efforts controlled at corporate would entail a very expensive (lots of labor) team. However, the effectiveness of a local market’s social program is contingent upon the store owner’s marketing sophistication. Are they representing the brand appropriately in the local market or are they negatively affecting brand and sales?
• For consumers, the result is a cluttered landscape. Local franchisees compete for social real estate with corporate [insert mental image of looking for a restaurant on Facebook and seeing a list of hundreds of stores in every local market].

Solutions

There are a couple of approaches that can help alleviate this social marketing issue in the QSR / franchise structured restaurant space:

• Content Strategy & Guidebook - leverage corporate team to set content strategy for brand. Build management documents that can be leveraged by corporate and local market folks to understand appropriate brand tone, voice, editorial topics / cadence. Think of it as a guidebook to help all contributing team members understand how to navigate the social space effectively.
• Training - Franchise owners may have a broad range of backgrounds. Create curriculum so each franchisee can better understand what social is, how it works, what is a brand’s place in the social mix.
• Certification Program - Create a certification program to help franchisees become ambassadors of the brand. Once a franchisee has gone through certification in the social space and learned how to leverage corporate’s rules, guidebooks, etc. then they can represent the brand in the local market. However, I’d also call out there should be guidelines on how to handle various scenarios, escalation paths on how and when to involve corporate, and repercussions if local marketing folks don’t adhere to guidelines or training (ability to take down local-level social presence).

Facebook: Where are the CMS Tools for Franchise-Model Brands?

I am thrilled to see a few products coming out that might help alleviate this issue. For brands and agencies, Facebook is the spot to create experiences for users. What I’m eager to see is CMS tools that allow brands to release national and locally-targeted messages without cluttering up the space:

• Audience sees messages that are most relevant to them. National content about brand, national campaigns, national contests appear in audience’s feed. Local content targeted to audience’s geographical area tout local store promotions, on-site events, involvement in local community. Experience is seamless and relevant serving up a blend of non-competing messages to the user.
• Franchisees in local markets undergo corporate training to understand social and how to represent the brand in the social space. They additionally adhere to editorial / content strategy plans to know what type of content categories they’ll push vs. corporate (to prevent clutter). Lastly, potentially there is a role within the CMS where new franchisees submit content for approval within an agreed time period before publishing. Think of it as training wheels on a social bike.
• Corporate pushes via CMS national content, national promotions, contests. Corporate also manages training program for franchisees in social space and holds a super admin role for new franchisees. Additionally responsible for moderation of UGC content on corporate FB page.

Does this tool exist today? Meet Promoboxx. They’re a beta technology that can integrate with Facebook, has a CMS component, and boasts the ability to do local vs. national message. Their solution helps brands manage promotions for example:

• Create coupons redeemable in-store
• Track success between stores
• Easily promote new product launches and regional specials
• Get access to your retailer channels
• Run one sweepstakes across multiple retailers

This problem is a big focus area for agencies and brands. Kudos to the first start-up that builds the fully baked plug-and-play CMS for Facebook that addresses this need. They’ll be bound to either be acquired by someone like Fishbowl or large agencies.