Winning brands have stopped thinking in silos: Christopher Brown in Global Franchise Magazine
We're excited to share insights from our recent interview with Christopher Brown, Marvia's Director of North America, as featured in Global Franchise Magazine, Issue 59. Drawing from conversations with franchise marketing leaders across North America, Christopher explores how growing franchise brands can bridge the gap between central marketing teams and local franchisees, without adding headcount or complexity.
Read the original interview in Global Franchise Magazine, Issue 59, here.
Winning brands have stopped thinking in silos
“Our current processes are starting to break down. Obviously, this can’t support our expected growth.” I heard this from a franchise just last week, and it perfectly captures what I see across the industry: franchise brands hitting a wall where their homegrown marketing processes simply can’t keep up with growth. Nearly every franchise marketing leader I speak with faces the same challenge. The central team is drowning in localization requests, while franchisees are either waiting for relevant content or creating their own off-brand materials. This gap between central and local marketing represents one of the biggest untapped opportunities in franchising.
It’s not a people problem
Most brands approach this by adding layers: more designers, approval workflows, and review processes. But here's what I've learned from dozens of conversations with franchise marketers: this isn't a capacity problem. It's a systems problem.
One pizza franchise creative director told me his team was constantly fielding requests but couldn't respond quickly because of their clunky vendor setup. "We spend too much time going back and forth with our current vendor on template setup," he said. What should have taken minutes was taking days.
Here's the dramatic proof: one franchise I worked with was trying to find the budget to add two new designers to support their already overworked creative team. For a fraction of the cost, they found they could "shorten the timeline to deliver creative,” maintain brand consistency, and actually significantly increase the local marketing output. They didn't need more people; they needed better systems.
The three pillars that work
- Make it easy. Your franchisees aren't professional marketers. They're small business owners managing daily operations. An e-bike franchise customer put it perfectly: "Dealers use our platform constantly." When it's genuinely easy, usage skyrockets.
- Make it scalable. Smart templating changes everything. A Portland franchisee should see their local address and offers automatically on their content. Phoenix sees different information, all without manual intervention. One restaurant franchise saved hours using this kind of automation: "Instead of our designers customizing 60 different Facebook posts, the system does it automatically."
- Make it connected. The winning brands have stopped thinking in silos. Local promotions, social updates, print materials, and timing coordination all happen from one place, creating speed advantages while competitors shuffle materials between teams.
The growth multiplier effect
The numbers tell the story. One global pizza franchise we work with tracks performance between participating and non-participating stores. "Participating stores turn out to have better performance, not only in sales and order growth but also in profitability," their marketing director told me.
But here's the key insight: you can't just launch a platform and expect adoption. As one successful franchise marketer told me, "You have to think in advance. How am I going to use it? How am I going to integrate it into our marketing strategy?" The most successful implementations treat this as a strategic initiative, not just a tech rollout.
The bottom line
The central versus local marketing challenge isn't going away. The franchises winning in today's market have turned it into their competitive advantage.
It starts with recognizing this isn't about hiring more people or adding more approval steps. It's about building systems that scale, making both your central team and your franchisees more effective.
Get the systems right, and everything else follows.
Ready to turn your central vs. local marketing challenge into a competitive advantage?
Discover how Marvia helps franchise brands scale their marketing operations, empower franchisees, and drive measurable growth, without adding headcount.
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