This article is part of a series exploring the Franchise Marketing Insights 2026 research conducted by Franchise Business Review in partnership with Marvia. The series uses the survey data to examine what the findings may mean for franchise marketing teams.
When franchisees go off-script, the one-off asset isn't the real cost. The cost is a marketing system that makes local teams rebuild, leaves HQ doing repeat work, and gives the brand too little visibility into what's happening across the network.
A location is promoting a community event. The approved campaign lacks space for a local sponsor or offer, and the review window is closing. Someone makes a flyer.
When the same kind of workaround keeps returning, the network can end up doing the work twice: the location creates a fix, then HQ adapts or rebuilds materials for broader use. That isn't a run of isolated exceptions. It's a workflow that keeps sending both sides back to the same need.
“Going off-script” can mean a useful local adjustment, a gap in HQ materials, or a genuine standards issue. Whatever prompted it, HQ needs to learn from the workaround, not only inspect the finished asset.
In the aggregate survey data, 88% of franchisees have created their own marketing content outside of what HQ provided. Only 11.8% say they rarely or never do. That makes independent creation a recurring feature of franchise marketing, not an edge case.
Source: Aggregate survey data, Marketing Program Support, franchisees, n=194. The finding describes content created outside HQ's materials, not whether each asset was on-brand.
At this prevalence, independent creation is part of how the network currently gets local marketing done, not a handful of exceptions. HQ should manage that reality, not act surprised by it. A policy that treats every locally made asset as a separate compliance event addresses the output and misses the pattern. The goal is to catch real standards issues while making a useful local option easier to produce inside the system.
Franchisees spend time on local marketing, and HQ teams spend time adapting assets. 80.5% of franchisees spend 3 or more hours per week on local marketing activities. Separately, 56% of franchisor marketing teams spend 6 or more hours per week adapting existing assets, including 21% who spend more than 10 hours.
Sources: Aggregate survey data, franchisees, n=200, and the final report, p. 6, franchisor marketing teams, n=291. These are separate measures of local-marketing time and HQ asset adaptation.
The figures put real workload on both sides of local execution. Franchisees spend time making marketing happen in their markets, while HQ teams spend time adapting materials for the network. That's the case for changing the workflow: local effort should go toward market choices, and HQ effort should build answers that can serve more than one location.
When several locations need the same variation, rebuilding it one request at a time is the expensive route. A flexible approved option lets HQ solve the recurring need once and gives locations a route that starts closer to what they need.
Franchisees named budget, approval, and tools as obstacles to local marketing. The biggest obstacles to executing local marketing for franchisees are budget (22%), getting approval from HQ (21%), and not having the right tools (18%). Respondents could select more than one obstacle, so these figures don't add to 100%.
Source: Aggregate survey data, Local Marketing Overall, 408 franchisee responses, multi-select.
Budget tops the obstacles franchisees selected, followed by approval and tools. That pattern matters. A system that asks locations to create more, wait longer, or work around missing tools is asking for extra effort from teams that already name resources as a barrier. More reminders won't fix that. HQ has to make the approved route workable with the time and tools locations have.
The final report shows a gap inside franchisor teams: 69% of franchisors report being confident or extremely confident that franchisees use on-brand materials. Yet 42% of those same franchisors say they discover off-brand or unapproved content frequently or constantly.
The pattern should change how HQ measures brand consistency. Confidence is useful, but it can't show what locations are actually using or where the approved route falls short. Frequent discoveries call for visibility into local execution, not another round of reassurance.
Brand equity is the strategic stake. The report doesn't measure it directly, but a brand can't be managed through standards alone if HQ can't see what locations use. The answer is to keep room for local judgment, make approved options useful, and give HQ a clear view of activity outside them. That's how a central team can protect consistency and learn from local adaptations at the same time.
A quarterly workaround review should be part of how HQ manages local execution. For each independently created asset or related request, record what prompted it, time spent by the location and HQ, what happened during approval, and whether another location had the same need. That turns individual complaints into a view of where the system is asking people to repeat work.
Use the pattern to decide what changes. Repeated requests for the same local field call for a reusable template. Delays on routine content call for a faster approval route. Materials that locations can't find need a clearer path to the current version.
Keep track of local adaptations that work, too. HQ should be able to turn a good local idea into an approved option when it will help other locations. The goal is a system that learns from local execution, rather than one that only notices it when something goes wrong.
Taken together, the data shows local marketing getting done in parallel: franchisees create beyond HQ's materials, HQ spends time adapting assets, and locations work within limits on time, budget, approvals, and tools.
Going off-script is network feedback. When it happens repeatedly, the approved path is asking franchisees and HQ to solve the same local need separately. Treat the workaround as a design signal, find the repeat work, and fix the route. Otherwise, HQ keeps paying in time while losing sight of the brand activity it needs to understand.
Register for the November 10 webinar for a discussion of the findings and practical next steps.
Read the Franchise Marketing Insights 2026 report.