Franchise Update Magazine Issue III, 2012 | Page 26

Grow Market Lead

Anne Gillaspie, CertaPro Painters

It’s Time
By Kerry Pipes and Eddy Goldberg

Franchise Consumer Marketing Conference grows up fast!

W

hen the keynoters, panelists, and attendees at
a conference can’t stop
talking about emerging technology and social media tools,
it says a lot about the current state
of franchise marketing. So it was at
the 2nd annual Franchise Consumer
Marketing Conference, held at the
elegant, historical Fairmont Hotel
atop San Francisco’s Nob Hill this
past June.
Since its launch in June 2011, the
conference has become a darling of chief
marketing officers, brand managers, and
marketing managers. Increased attendance

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Franchiseupdate Iss u e III, 2 0 1 2

by franchise marketing executives and
sponsors were a testament to the event’s
rapid growth. With 95 franchisors representing 140 brands, the conference doubled
in size from its inaugural year—and so
did the number of exhibitors.
“Never before have so many franchise
consumer marketing executives met together in one place,” says Therese Thilgen, CEO of Franchise Update Media
Group, which hosted the conference.
As for all that tech talk, the conference’s theme this year—“It’s Time”—was
dead-on. In the words of boot camp leader
Scott Klososky, “The world around us is
becoming automated, there’s a massive

increase in the volume of information
we digest, and this is radically altering
the way work gets done.”
The overall buzz at the conference
was upbeat as marketing executives and
vendors spoke positively about consumers’ buying and purchasing trends and
the general state of business. But the
focus of the event remained on marketing, marketing, and more marketing. Tools, strategies, techniques, and
technology were shared freely and
often at sessions and throughout the
hallways during the two-day event, with
participants candidly discussing their
marketing successes and failures—and