Franchise Update Magazine Issue III, 2015 | Page 54

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F R A N C H I S E

Mitch Joel, keynote speaker

ers continues to fall; automation will
become increasingly standard; and
minimum wage debates will continue
to affect franchising.
While the overall economic outlook
may appear gloomy, “It is economic
growth,” he stressed. “It’s not bad, it
just doesn’t feel good.” To the roomful
of franchise marketers, he added, “Now
is your time to shine.” The challenge
in the coming year, he said, is to collect and centralize data. “We’re just
at the beginning of finding ways to
measure—and what to measure. Performance metrics will be key to assessing the effectiveness of your marketing
spend, not only for customers, but for
franchisees.”
It’s a one-screen world

Next up was the first keynote of the
conference. Mitch Joel, president of
Twist Image, is a “media hacker,” author of the book Ctrl Alt Delete, and
one of the world’s leading experts in
contemporary marketing. Joel warned
the audience in an eye- (and brain-)
popping way that it’s time to reboot and
rebuild their business model and their
life. If you don’t, he said, not only will
your company begin to slide backward,
you may find yourself unemployable
within 5 years.
“Social, mobile, and analytics are not
going away,” he said. PC orders are
down worldwide and smartphones and
tablets are turning culture into a “onescreen world.” He pointed out that in
1999 there were 38 million broadband
Internet users worldwide. Today, there
are 1.2 billion with broadband Internet
access on their phones. He focused his
presentation on four ideas, which are

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M A R K E T I N G

explained further in his book.
1) The power of direct relationships. The battle for a direct relationship with the customer has changed in
the past few years, with everyone in
the value chain today competing for a
direct relationship with each customer.
Take Beats by Dre, for example: 7.7
million people “liked” this brand on
Facebook and many bought them at
Walmart. So who is most entitled to
have the primary relationship with the
customer, he asked: Beats, Walmart, or
Facebook? (Or perhaps Apple, which
bought the brand last year?) The point,
he said, is that companies are not only
doing battle with competitors, “but also
with all the players in the value chain.”
2) Sex with data. “We’re moving
away from demographics and psychographics to perso