Franchise Update Magazine Issue II, 2014 | Page 38
Grow Market Lead
yond. The sandwich and deli concept
is looking to expand in both established
and underdeveloped markets throughout Texas and around Denver, Kansas
City, Nashville, and Tampa. Untapped
markets, including Charlotte, Miami,
Raleigh, and St. Louis, are also on the
radar screen.
Describe your role as CMO. I am
the steward of the Schlotzsky’s brand,
a passionate advocate for the brand in
relation to everything that touches our
guests—including high-level strategic
thought leadership, marketing calendar development/execution, culinary/
menu research and development, mass/
micro media, digital/social media and
web/mobile interactivity, publicity/corporate communication, franchise and
guest relations, and local restaurant/
field marketing activities. Overall, my
role is to work closely with our franchise
partners to deliver a remarkable guest
experience that leads to incremental,
profitable sales growth.
What’s unique about the CMO position at Schlotzsky’s? The opportunity
to elevate the brand by building on its
proud, 42-year sandwich/deli category
heritage through the development of a
new fast casual/bakery-cafe experience
to become even more relevant to the
way our guests dine today.
What’s the most challenging part
of being a CMO today? Given the
advent of both digital and social media, coupled with the increased level of
control enjoyed by today’s more techsavvy guests, the ability to reach a mass
audience through traditional means has
become very challenging. As a result,
we must employ an integrated marketing communication approach that leverages guest information and data to
develop more targeted and measureable
plans to reach our desired audiences in
an effective yet cost-efficient manner.
What are the 3 most important
keys to being an effective CMO
leader today? As I see it, there are
actually four simple, yet very powerful
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and interwoven keys to becoming an effective CMO leader that I have learned
over many year ́