Franchise Update Magazine Issue III, 2016 | Page 48

CONSUMER MARKETING
BY EDDY GOLDBERG

Big Data Meets
Consumers

F

SHIFTING FROM DATA MINING TO DATA REFINING

ishbowl, founded in 2000, is a mar- ers franchisees think they have.
keting platform for the restaurant
By identifying critical factors such as
industry, supporting more than how often and what time of day a customer
50,000 chain and independent restau- comes in, what they’ve ordered before,
rants with software and services for guest average check size, last visit, and demoacquisition, messaging, promotions man- graphic or psychographic data, “You start
agement, and loyalty analytics. Franchise getting a lot of insights about them and
clients include Jamba Juice, Buffalo Wings their behavior,” says Ganesan. “With that,
& Rings, Texas Roadhouse, On the Border, franchise marketers can engage with them
and other well-known brands.
in a more meaningful fashion.”
Dev Ganesan, after stints leading sevFor example, if you know an individual
eral high-tech firms, came on board as comes in every month and orders only
CEO in October 2014 when founder chicken or fish, you won’t send them a
Scott Shaw stepped aside. In early 2015, coupon for a new burger, but you might
the company launched its guest analytics send them an offer that rewards them for
platform, integrating analytics and big coming in more often. Using predictive
data into its marketing platform, offering analytics allows one-on-one personalizaCMOs a dashboard and set of analytical tion, for example offering a new red wine
for someone who always ormodules. In December 2015,
ders reds with their dinner.
the company acquired CLYP
Technologies, a “next generaWhile this technology
tion” mobile automation firm.
is called “big data,” it really
“This gave us the CRM,”
is more about “small data,”
says Ganesan. “We had the
says Ganesan, since it allows
analytics but were missing that
franchisees to take control of
piece from the retail side.” In
the fire hose of customer data
addition to adding marketing
and make decisions at the
automation, the acquisition
store level on an individual
also added loyalty and proxbasis (automated, of course,
imity marketing (think beacon
based on the data and the
and Wifi), offering restaurant Dev Ganesan
rules chosen).
“Big data is not this one
clients a more comprehensive
solution to their biggest challenge, says big dashboard of intelligence. It’s insights
Ganesan: how to drive more customers at the very small level so somebody can
into their restaurants and increase same understand it and take action,” he says.
store sales.
Dashboards can be tailored to provide
Unless a customer has signed up for a different slices of information to different
loyalty or rewards program, he says, fran- departments at the franchisor, for example,
chisees have no idea about the identity of to the CMO, CEO, CFO, or the group in
as many as 95 percent of the people who charge of new store openings. “While the
walk into their stores. Having more cus- data is big, all of the action is local and
tomer data all in one place (from sources small,” he says.
including POS systems, loyalty programs,
However, after explaining in detail how
and customer GPS data), and being able to the technology works, Ganesan made a
analyze and use it quickly to personalize critical point about the role of big data.
and customize offers or promotions can “The most important thing is that this is
save time and money by more effectively not about technology. It’s all about custargeting actual customers, not the custom- tomer engagement—and the more you

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know about them, the more they will engage and the better experience they will
have.” While the technology may seem
baffling under the hood, he says it really
is customer-focused. “It’s built on understanding the guest and how to enhance
their experience so they keep coming back.”
Q: How can franchise brands actually use the ever-increasing amount
of data they’ve collected to develop,
assess, and plan their consumer marketing strategies and tactics?
DG: With the increase in available data,
often located in disparate systems, data
paralysis is a real problem. We’re working
with franchise brands to break down data
silos and bring together data from multiple sources and connect it at the guest
level. We’re leveraging this data to help
our clients drive increased frequency and
spend by understanding who their guests
are and how they interact with their brand.
Some examples of the analysis we’ve
done include lifetime value analysis by
join channel; value of marketing programs
(loyalty and/or email); incremental value
of campaign; guest audits, including best
customer identification, persona analysis,
and RFM; discount analysis; menu; and
trade area. We