Marketing Byte: The Role of a Franchise Advisory Group on Marketing

The 2024 Annual Franchise Marketing Report (AFMR) provides data-driven insights that marketing professionals and other leaders can use to measure and elevate their efforts. The franchise space is constantly faced with opportunities and challenges as marketers adapt to industry shifts, including the need to accelerate the digital transformation of their brands.

Franchise CMOs, CEOs, VPs, directors of marketing, and other senior-level marketing leaders completed detailed questionnaires for the sixth annual AFMR. The data and statistical findings were aggregated and analyzed to comprehensively examine the marketing practices, budgets, and strategies across a broad spectrum of franchise brands and sectors.

Size and selection of franchise advisory group

Nearly every franchise has a franchise advisory council to share feedback and provide recommendations about some of the top issues impacting the system. The group is comprised of several franchisees who represent the interests of others and work with the franchisor on matters such as operations, training, advertising, or development.

Franchise Update asked franchise marketing executives about the role their franchise advisory council had on their brand’s marketing programs. It included questions about the size and composition of these groups and the council’s involvement with decisions made by the marketing department.

Less than half of the franchises surveyed (41 percent) said they had a franchise advisory council specifically focused on marketing and advertising. Of those franchises that did have a committee that was involved with marketing decisions, we inquired about the size of the group. Although the exact number likely varied by the size of the franchise, the highest number of responses was five members (50 percent). Twenty percent of the responses said the group was comprised of three or four members, while 30 percent said it was made up of 6-10 people.

The composition of franchise advisory councils can vary, and we asked how these members were selected. Slightly more than half of the respondents (58 percent) said they were appointed by the franchisor, while 42 percent said they were elected by other franchisees.

Franchisee advisory council collaboration and feedback

Franchise Update asked how often the group meets either in-person or online with the franchise’s marketing leadership. The most common response, at 47 percent, was four times per year, which is in line with a quarterly meeting. The next highest answer was 32 percent indicating they meet six or more times each year. Only 16 percent said they meet three times or less per year.

Finally, we inquired about the information shared between the marketing departments and the franchise advisory group. Not surprisingly, the vast majority (85 percent) of respondents said they shared the details of their general ad fund with members of the franchise advisory group.