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Franchise operators hold a piece of advertising power that most national marketers never have to touch: the choice to put co-op dollars behind a local television campaign. When a campaign works, the calls and leads land with the franchisee who approved it. When it doesn't, so does the disappointment, plus a skepticism about the channel that can follow that location for years. Streaming TV has changed enough about how these campaigns work so the outcome doesn't have to repeat, as long as the operator understands what causes a first flight to fall short.
The story usually goes like this. A franchisee puts co-op dollars into a TV campaign for the first time. The flight runs for six weeks, and the phone doesn't ring any more than it already was. Nobody can explain why, so TV gets filed under “doesn't work in our market.”
I've spent years helping local advertisers run streaming TV campaigns, and I hear this story from nearly every franchise owner. It's frustrating because franchises are built for this channel: defined territories, consistent brand standards, and a clear local customer to win. The cause usually traces back to what the operator inherited—and that can be fixed.
Traditional broadcast TV sends one signal to everyone in a media market, bought in bulk with little insight into who saw it. Connected TV, or CTV, delivers ads through streaming apps, which means operators can target specific areas and watch delivery data while the campaign runs.
Three setup decisions account for most underperforming first flights, but luckily a franchisee can correct all of them before the next one launches.
Campaign timing tends to follow co-op fund releases, national planning cycles, or fiscal quarters. Local demand follows none of them. I've seen an HVAC franchisee launch during the mild spring weeks when nobody needs heating or cooling, timed to when co-op money became available, then go dark right as the first heat wave hit. A gym operator spent most of the annual budget in a heavy October burst and had almost nothing left for January, when built-up familiarity would have paid off as people searched for memberships.
The co-op structure itself can create a mismatch, so franchisees should align their flight with their market’s buying season before committing budget. If the co-op calendar doesn’t align, they should raise the issue with the franchisor early.
Traditional TV agencies grew up around national buys, so when a local campaign underperformed, the explanation was guesswork: bad timing, weak offer, or the wrong station. None of it could be confirmed or ruled out, and that's how one disappointing flight hardens into a permanent conclusion about the channel.
CTV platforms now show operators delivery, frequency, and response in their own territory while a campaign is live, and franchisees should use it. But the most consequential measurement decision happens before launch, when someone draws the geo-target.
With CTV, ads only reach households inside a defined area on a map, and someone decides where that area's edges sit. If a franchisee sets them too wide, they pay to advertise into a neighboring territory. If they trace them along their franchise agreement's lines instead of where their customers live, they miss the commuter corridors and nearby zip codes that feed their business. Either way, the numbers come back looking like a creative or channel failure when the campaign simply pointed at the wrong households. Before launch, franchisees should check the target against where their customers reside.
The other habit worth breaking is lifting the national ad wholesale into a local buy: the polished spot from the brand's agency, built for a country-wide audience with a generic call to action. That ad sells the brand promise. The franchisee's prospective customer needs a reason to choose that location, whether that's a five-minute drive or an offer they won't see anywhere else.
On CTV, ad creation has largely moved onto the platforms themselves, and an operator can produce a new version of a spot with a different offer or opening line in an afternoon. Many franchisors allow more flexibility than operators assume, so franchisees should ask what they can change and test two versions in the first flight. Expectations should stay modest; a first flight teaches operators things more reliably than it transforms their pipeline.
Franchisees who come to an uninformed conclusion that TV fails in their market learn nothing through the experience. Those who align the flight to local demand, verify the geo-target against their real trade area, adapt creative within brand guardrails, and insist on territory-level reporting from day one set themselves up for something durable. They get an honest picture of what works in their territory, which is more than traditional TV can offer a franchisee.
David Martin is co-founder and COO of Adwave, a TV advertising platform built for small businesses, including franchise operators.