The classic franchise business model typically consists of a corporate and retail partnership working toward common goals. In a perfect world, franchisors and franchisees endeavor to achieve sales, profits and growth through combined and carefully coordinated efforts.
However, in the real world, these partners often find it difficult to agree upon and achieve effective marketing synergies despite their shared interests. On the one hand, the OEM franchisor is the creator and steward of the brand, and often views its franchisees as lacking the “big-picture vision” to execute marketing plans and strategies that will achieve long-term brand objectives. Conversely, franchisees often consider their OEM counterparts as lacking a true understanding of the “front-line business of retail” and the day-to-day need to drive traffic and generate sales.
What is perhaps unique to Mower in this particular business arena is our depth of experience in working with both OEM franchisors and retail franchisees/ coops/dealer associations. As a result, we know first-hand just how important it is to achieve a clear understanding and effective working relationship between the two sides of the equation. We understand that each plays a critical role in their collective success. And we work toward aligning their efforts to execute efficient and effective marketing initiatives. This includes marketing plans, creative execution, content creation, media planning/buying, public relations and promotional programs.
We view it as an essential part of our job to help our OEM franchisor clients improve and maintain their communications and relationships with their franchisees. We see it as equally essential to help our franchisee/coop/dealer group clients implement retail programs that achieve near-term results while at the same time furthering the long-term brand mission.
In our experience, when the franchisor/franchisee relationship is working properly and results in a truly coordinated effort, everybody wins.