Marketing for franchised quick service networks
Every national campaign is paid for by franchisees, so it is built to show up in transaction counts at store level.
Where the money moves.
The levy is both the constraint and the mandate. Franchisees fund the national spend, the Franchising Code requires a marketing fund statement back to them, and the fund keeps its credibility only while the network can see what the money bought. That standard shapes the work from the start: spend mapped to campaign, campaign mapped to trading period, results read as transactions and same-store sales rather than reach. A campaign that cannot be explained at a franchise advisory council meeting is not finished, no matter how it performed on a platform dashboard.
A national campaign lands unevenly. One store sits beside a station, one is drive-thru only on an arterial road, one trades on a food court lease with the landlord's hours, and the same offer produces three different weeks. Local area marketing budgets exist for exactly that, and they tend to be spent on whatever a franchisee can arrange nearby. The local layer works better as a system: radius targeting set to the real trade area, assets a store cannot break, and an approval path that keeps brand control at head office without stalling the spend.
The product calendar is the strategy. A promotional window has a build, a peak and a tail, and the media weight has to land once the product is in every store, not after the first weekend of sell through, because supply, crew training and point of sale all have to agree with the advertising. Campaign windows are planned against the pipeline and against the day part being defended, whether that is breakfast, lunch, the afternoon snack or late night, so the creative is written for the trade you are trying to move.
Kilojoule display rules, nutrition claims and the codes governing food advertising all shape what the creative can say before it shapes what it looks like. Networks at scale carry menu labelling obligations, the AANA codes govern how food is advertised and how children are addressed, and a nationally advertised price has to be one every store can honour. That review sits inside the build rather than after it, so artwork goes to franchisees once and comes back approved rather than argued.
What we run.
Store level attribution
Media structured so each site's radius spend can be read against its own transaction data, giving the network a per-store view instead of a national average that hides both the winners and the problems.
Local area marketing kit
Locked templates, pre-approved offers, geo-targeting set to the real trade radius, and a request path a franchisee can use in a week, so local spend becomes visible in the same report as national.
App and loyalty lifecycle
Push, offer and reactivation flows built by day part and by lapsed behaviour, aimed at frequency and basket rather than downloads, with offers priced so redemption still leaves store margin.
Product launch media
Weight planned to the supply and training timeline for each limited time offer, across video, social and search, with creative variants held ready for the tail rather than left to run flat.
Fund reporting
A quarterly read and an annual statement written for franchisees, showing spend by campaign and trading period against transactions and same-store sales, in language that survives a room of operators.
Questions we get asked.
In the units the network trades on. Spend is mapped to campaign and trading period, results are read as transactions and same-store sales rather than reach, and store level results are shown so a franchisee can find their own site. The annual marketing fund statement becomes a reporting deadline rather than an accounting exercise assembled once a year.
Yes, and it performs better inside a system. Templated assets they cannot break, geo-targeting set to the real trade radius rather than a postcode, and an approval path that does not stall the spend. Head office keeps brand control, the franchisee keeps the local knowledge, and the local money finally appears in the same report as national.
Yes, as a channel with its own margin. Menu presentation, photography, promotional windows and store level ratings all move aggregator volume, and the decisions worth making are about which items to push where the commission still leaves something behind. It is planned alongside the owned app and in-store trade rather than treated as a separate business.
The franchisor. Ad accounts, analytics, app data, domains and creative files sit in the network's name with your team as administrator. Nothing is held in an intermediary account. That matters more in franchising than anywhere else, because the fund is franchisee money and everything it built has to remain network property.
Also in hospitality and food
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