The 6 Golden Rules of Franchise Management for Entertainment Brands

What even is Franchise Management?

To me, it is:

• A fan-centred, long-term approach to brand management and commercial growth

• Much more than just Licensing & Merchandising

• The creation of a roadmap of content, products, experiences, and partnerships that are rooted in the identified needs of different fan segments

• Articulating a common set of goals, brand values, and fan groups that the team(s) can rally around

• A set of best practices and ways of working that maximise the IP and enable clear, fast decision-making and execution

No two brands - and no two entertainment businesses - are completely alike. The challenges and opportunities are always unique to the brand in question.

But there are a set of common principles that can be applied to them all. Golden Rules, that should inform all decision-making and execution.

1. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BRAND

The brand is your guide in all things.

Take the time to:

• Identify and understand the brand values deeply

• Articulate them clearly and consistently to all stakeholders and secure buy-in. Sometimes, the brand values have already been articulated in so many decks, at different points in time, that there does not exist a ‘single source of truth’ expression of the brand. Now is the time to gather those different versions, distill them, and create a definitive articulation of your brand and its values

• Then manage the franchise in a way that is true to that brand and optimises its long-term health

It follows that your commercial and promotional executions need to be faithful to the brand. There should be no short-term cash-ins that risk brand damage - a quick buck is the antithesis of managing your brand for the long term.

This is also an opportunity to base your internal team culture on your brand’s values. The most effective IP teams I have been involved with found a way to extract key elements of their brand and use them to inform their internal team culture. Does your IP involve a band of heroes uniting against all odds? Integrate United Teamwork into your team values. Does your protagonist have great integrity, choosing the right path over the easy path? That too is a noble goal for your team. Or is your IP based on a bear from Peru with unfailingly good manners? I’d argue that being kind and polite with your colleagues is a worthy principle.

2. UNDERSTAND YOUR FANS

Segmenting your fanbase enables a more nuanced understanding of their respective needs and preferences, and should be the basis for all your planning.

Not just demographically and geographically, but attitudinally as well. Who are the Superfans; who are the Casuals; which fans have Lapsed (and why); where are the Next Generation fans coming from - are you offering entry points for kids to build awareness and engagement?

By using qualitative and quantitative research you will generate insights and KPIs. Brand trackers measuring familiarity, affinity, interest, intent-to-purchase and so on can help you track progress over time. This type of research can provide insights into brand attributes, creative execution preferences, comms strategy, and the most-desired products and experiences. Without it you really are flying blind.

If you do this right and properly understand the nuances of your fanbase, you should be able, when developing new products and experiences, to articulate which of your fans groups you are doing it for, and how it meets their needs.

3. CONTROL IS KEY

In an ideal world, the franchise owner controls all rights to the IP across all territories worldwide.

This enables:

• Unilateral decision-making

• Complete alignment of approach and control over timing

• Faster execution

• Global partnership opportunities

• Amortisation of centralized franchise costs across a maximum breadth of rights and markets

• Maximum upside

In reality, rights can be messy - particularly for older brands with legacy executions, historical partners, and splintered rights or territories.

So, it is important to clean up your rights. This can require up-front investment in energy, dollars, and time with lawyers - but the results can supercharge your ability to grow the brand.

4. CREATE A LONG-TERM, JOINED-UP ROADMAP OF CONTENT, PRODUCTS & EXPERIENCES

Establishing a regular cadence of new and thoughtfully-scheduled content is the backbone of your franchise plan: movies, TV, games, live experiences, short-form & social.

A pipeline of content (and associated marketing) is necessary to build and sustain awareness, stimulate engagement, and get partners excited and supportive. Licensing & Merchandising can’t grow on its own without a pipeline of content to support it.

In building this pipeline, remember that from a franchise point of view, different content does different jobs - a movie can provide a burst of mass awareness, while a TV show is constantly accessible and builds regular engagement.

Once your content plan is set, your roadmap should include wide-ranging consumer products and experiences at varied price points.

In addition (and today more than ever), you need a 365-day engagement plan across platforms and touchpoints to keep fans involved between major content releases. Optimise your calendar to provide constant newsflow, and coordinate franchise announcements to maximise cross-promotion and amplification.

5. BUILD STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS

Your brand’s superpower is the range of partnerships you put in place to support it.

Identify partners who:

• Share your understanding of the brand

• Are building for the long term

• Will delight your franchise fanbase

• Can amplify your brand value

• Meet a defined quality and materiality threshold. Partnerships are time-consuming to execute and manage – select wisely and don’t waste time with short-term, low-value/quality partnerships

However, selecting partners is only half of it: once they’re onboard, the real value is generated by how you manage them. It’s important to practice deep partner engagement/account management.

Bring your partners ‘inside the tent’ - include them in your franchise briefings and make them feel part of it (even those who might not be your direct partners - for example, even if literary rights lie elsewhere and you don’t manage publishing partners directly, you can still include them!).

6. ORGANISE YOURSELF PROPERLY FOR FRANCHISE MANAGEMENT AND INVEST FOR LONG-TERM GROWTH

Finally, set yourself up for success by organising your team structures and processes to support franchise management.

• Maintain a franchise-wide P&L so you can see the whole picture. Only by doing this and establishing KPIs can you understand and quantify the 'size of the prize'/uplift that a successful franchise management approach can bring – which in turn provides the context for investment decisions

• Invest in central Franchise, Research, and Social Media functions. Your Franchise team should be a single source of truth for franchise datapoints, performance KPIs, research, assets, sales materials and so on. Information should be centralised - and then disseminated widely

• Most importantly, have a Chief Creative Officer or brand committee to act as brand guardian and safeguard Golden Rule #1

That’s it. From my experience managing brands, if you want to build IP value over the long term, it boils down to these principles:

1. It’s all about the brand

2. Understand your fans

3. Control is key

4. Create a long-term, joined-up roadmap of content, products & experiences

5. Build strategic partnerships

6. Organise yourself properly for franchise management and invest for growth

What Golden Rules would you add to this list? Do let me know 🙂.

Future newsletters will be based more on current topics, newsflow and best practice examples of franchise management. But as a new newsletter I wanted to set out my stall upfront 😎. Thanks for reading - please forward to anyone you know who might appreciate it.