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Marketing Vanguard
Greatest Hits - From Advertising to Operations with Frances Allen, Checkers & Rally's Drive-In Restaurants
00:31:22
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- [00:01]
Partnerize Representative
Partnerize is the only partnership management solution powering profitable growth for marketers through an end to end software platform and comprehensive service practice. The Partnerize platform delivers a fully integrated, comprehensive suite of discovery, recruitment, optimization, payment, brand safety and fraud prevention capabilities supported by unrivaled service expertise. With Partnerize, you're in control of the entire partnership marketing lifecycle, all on a single platform.
- [00:31]
Jenny Rooney
Hi there, My name is Jenny Rooney, Chief experience Officer and host of Adweek's newest podcast, Marketing Vanguard. We're so excited to bring you the next evolution of CMO moves by bringing you insightful content from our marketing community. Together, we'll dive into discussions with CMOs and other C suite executives who are tasked daily with making decisions that, in incremental or monumental ways, move the needle for their brands, their companies, and the customers they serve. In each episode, we'll focus on one key idea or why they made it, what it caused, whether it worked, the ripples it set forth, and how it has defined the person as a business leader. We also address missteps, poor choices and gambles as mistakes, of course, often yield the greatest knowledge. In addition, we'll ask each guest to share the names of people they rely on daily, as well as a recommendation for whom we should interview next. Hi everyone. Hi everyone. I'm Jenny Rooney. Welcome to the Marketing Vanguard Podcast. I'm thrilled to be here today with Frances Allen. Francis is the CEO of Checkers and Rally's Drive in Restaurants. Francis, welcome.
- [01:47]
Frances Allen
Thank you, Jenny. Great to see you again and great to be here.
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Jenny Rooney
Well, I'm thrilled to have you here. You know, I think you and I have known each other for a number of years now, but what I'm so excited about is when I met you, you were a Chief Marketing officer and of course now you're CEO. And we're going to get into that because on the Marketing Vanguard podcast, one of the things that we love to do is interview folks just like you, frankly, who have come up through that marketing track and through that marketing expertise and had risen to that CMO role, but then have since, frankly, graduated to a president, a CEO role, overseeing the entire business. But I think there's a uniqueness about CEOs who have come up through the CMO role and I'd love to kind of dive into that in a minute.
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Frances Allen
With you, but before we get into.
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Jenny Rooney
It, why don't you please, you know, share with everybody listening a little bit about you, your background. I did, I did sort of tweak it or reference it a little bit there, but you should go into greater detail around your history and your background and how long you've been at Checkers at this point.
- [02:56]
Frances Allen
Absolutely. So I really started in the advertising side of the business and spent many years there. And I think, you know, it's a. It's a hallmark of my career to date that, that, you know, once I feel like I've done some of the most exciting things in that field, I want to move on to the next thing. And so really that's how my career has progressed. So from doing advertising in the UK to Europe, then to Asia and Hong Kong, and then moving to the States and getting into the marketing side with Pepsi. And from Pepsi, I decided that there was this new fangled thing coming along called cell phones. And so I thought that would be really interesting. And so I briefly moved into the IT world, realized that was not for me. And then this opportunity came up to be the chief brand officer for a little regional chain called Dunkin Donuts. And that sounded like real fun. And I hadn't actually ever sold an experience. I'd sold a lot of items, soft drinks, snacks, newspapers, but never actually sold an experience. And I thought that would be a great challenge. I loved it. It's where my love affair with the restaurant industry started. And I've been in the restaurant business ever since. So from Duncan to Denny's. And I know you had John Dillon on a while ago. John and I worked there together. It was a fast. Very proud of what we did and think John Dillon's doing an amazing job. And what I wanted to do next, though, was really learn the operations side of the business. And I had this wonderful opportunity at Jack in the Box to go and do just that as president of that brand, working for Lenny Comma, who is an extraordinary leader in the industry. So I did that for a few years and then of course made my big step into a CEO with first of Boston Market and then Checkers Driving restaurants, getting back to the burgers and fries business, which I think is just such a fun side of the. Of the restaurant category. And I've been there literally since about three weeks before the. The pandemic hit. So it's been an interesting ride.
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Jenny Rooney
Absolutely. And you know, we're going to get into this in a minute and I have some, obviously some questions that I ask of all of my guests, but I'd love for you to just talk if you had to isolate one. You know, probably the biggest challenge that you experienced in having to move from that chief brand officer, chief marketing officer role to overseeing the company. As a CEO, you know, what was the biggest thing that you as an individual needed to obtain from a skill and mindset standpoint?
- [06:09]
Frances Allen
Yeah, I think it's that P and L management and really overseeing. Having the opportunity to actually oversee a P and L. I think that's what everybody is looking for when they think about general managers, presidents or CEOs, is that sort of financial P and L management side of the business. And so I was fortunate in that I had a supporter in John Miller at Denny's who was willing to work with me and give me some oversight of that, and then of course, Lenny who was willing to take that leap. And so that's what you've got to find is people that see enough potential in you to work with you and help you learn what you need to learn. I had the leadership skills, and I think that's the critical piece. You can learn these other functions if you've got the right approach, the right attitude, and just a curiosity about it and a desire to learn.
- [07:19]
Jenny Rooney
All right, so, Frances, one of the things I want to talk to you about is basically the fact that you have marketing leadership in your background and how that's been able to really position you for success as a CEO.
- [07:30]
Frances Allen
Yeah, it's a great question. I think. I think it's. It's about curiosity. I think as a marketer, you're constantly looking for consumer insights and an understanding about the relationship between your brand and your customer. You're always looking to innovate in order to just keep that one step ahead. And I think that taking those kind of natural proclivities, if you like, of a marketer and actually bringing that to the CEO spot, it has been very valuable for me. So I continue to do that in the CEO seat. But also I just have just a desire to learn other functions as well, and just a general sense of curiosity.
- [08:23]
Jenny Rooney
What is your educational background? I'm curious to know what you studied and sort of how much, you know, financial management, leadership. You know, there's so much that goes into, obviously the CEO role and marketing is becoming a business growth driver within organizations. And yet historically it was taught as a functional, you know, a functional, functional focus within companies. But CEO is so much more expansive. So sort of what is that educational background that positioned you so well?
- [08:49]
Frances Allen
Well, ironically, I'm a mathematician, so I got a mathematics degree. I loved it. I love the problem solving side of it, which I think really helps in the CEO suite. I love data, so I love. I love just getting insights from the data. But then I'm left brain, right brain, I could have done economics. I loved history. There's a lot of the, if you like, the more creative things that I also enjoyed. So I think that left brain, right brain stands me in very good stead because as you said, marketing has now become as much science as art. And so having that data background I think helps for that and it also helps in the CEO role. There's no such thing as a perfect answer. Everything's ambiguous and you have to weigh up from the data and have a, have an ability to just rely on your gut as well. And I think that's something that marketers have to do a lot because no one's going to tell you what the answer is.
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Jenny Rooney
100% yes. And there's exactly. Now would probably be a good time to just pause really quickly and have you just share with everybody about the company. You know, like just do a quick level set where's the company and its journey and then that'll circle back to why those consumer insights are so important for you as the corporate leader around driving the business forward.
- [10:21]
Frances Allen
So our business is Checkers in some of the country and Raleigh's in the other. So we just naturally refer to it as Checkers and Raleigh's. It is the first no dining room, double drive through smaller footprint. It was all about convenience. It was designed to get people really craveable, bold flavor, fast and no frills and at an affordable price. So we have just over 800 restaurants across the US we're in about 33 states. And what's really fascinating for us of course is we're watching all of our much bigger burger and fry competitors, which is the space that we participate in, start to test our model and as we like to joke, we're about 35 years ahead of them. So really getting into more drive through innovation. Things like a dedicated e commerce lane from converting one of our lanes to drive through to AI at the drive through we're the first to actually be able to crack the code on voice activated ordering because drive thru is really who we are and it's always been at the core of our business.
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Jenny Rooney
Well and it's also, especially if it's a no frills, economically favorable choice, you know, it's affordable and that's something that positions well right now, obviously. I mean this is, you know, we're living in a time that can be quite challenging and having great food fast that people really enjoy. But it's fascinating going back to what you're saying about, you know, the Consumer insights and sort of the marketer in you. How much are you putting that marketer hat on and how much do you have to force yourself frankly to take it off sometimes and let the chief marketer handle those decisions? That must be kind of a challenge for you personally as you think about leading and where you're stepping in, where you're stepping out, where you bring that expertise that you do have around marketing to bear in your decisions.
- [12:30]
Frances Allen
Well, I hope I'm asking consumer, consumer related questions across every function, Jenny. So not just tormenting the Chief Marketing officer, but I do think that it does help, joking aside, in all functions. Because my job is to put the consumer at the center of every decision we make and in these days as well, the employee, the team member at the restaurant at the heart of all the decisions we make. Because obviously without them we cannot deliver a great guest experience. So I think that ability to constantly be thinking about who are our stakeholders, what do they want from us and what can we do to make their lives better is applicable across all functions. So you have to ask my chief marketing officer whether I'm meddling, but I think he enjoys the blue sky conversations that we often have. And also he's talking to somebody when he's making a pitch. He's talking to somebody that's actually been in his seat and I think that's probably a benefit.
- [13:52]
Jenny Rooney
Well, let's talk about that because that's where my mind was going. We talked so much about how CMOs need to be advocates for themselves in the C suite. They need to be able to speak the language of the cfo. They need to be having sort of be in lockstep with the CEO, obviously to make sure that marketing and marketing leadership's relevance is maintained in an organization supported and revered as the business growth driver that we all know it to be. Now that you're on the other side of the equation and the other side of that conversation, where do you think CMOs get it wrong in partnering with CEOs, what advice would you give as far as helping them tell a better narrative that frankly is more, more readily accepted and adopted in an organization such that marketing is supported because your national inclination is going to support marketing, you understand it, it's part of who you are. But now that you're on that side, what would be your perspective?
- [14:50]
Frances Allen
It's about collaboration, it's about building a team mentality with especially the operating partners, but finance as well, because nothing in the restaurant business happens in isolation. So when I was selling soft drinks, it was Much more about the marketing would drive the sales and the positioning in the stores, of course, but in the restaurant business, marketing and operations needs to be absolutely hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. And so I think the most important thing I need to see is that the marketing team are appropriately collaborating with their operating partners and making sure that they've got the best financial data as well. But I think that that's a general philosophy of mine anyway about how the executive team needs to function. So I've been in too many organizations where the executive team is a collection of functional heads. They're not a team.
- [16:02]
Partnerize Representative
Partnerise is the only global partnership management solution powering profitable growth for marketers through an end to end software platform and comprehensive service practice. The partnerized platform delivers a fully integrated comprehensive suite of discovery, recruitment, optimization, payment, brand safety and fraud prevention capabilities supported by unrivaled service, including the category's only in house support program. With Partnerise, you're in control of the entire partnership marketing lifecycle, all on a single platform. Partnerise gives marketers a better way to partner for all your meeting, event and workplace needs. Convene is a partner, not just the place. A preeminent global hospitality company within the meeting, event and shared workplace industries. The company and its portfolio of brands provide clients with concierge style service in house, food and beverage in house, event production resources and dedicated service staff, all to ensure a seamless and memorable experience.
- [17:11]
Frances Allen
And so my job is to make sure that all of the functional heads, whether it's marketing, operations, people, it, all of the operational heads are think of their peers as their teammates and not, you know, we call that team number one mentality like how, how can I leverage my teammates to make my idea work rather than try and sell to my teammates?
- [17:41]
Jenny Rooney
I love that, that's so nuanced but it's, it's really very much, we're in this together, let's work together. As opposed to I have to be on the defensive, selling my ideas and hoping that they resonate. But that's a very different dynamic.
- [17:58]
Frances Allen
I'll give you an example. During the whole staffing crisis, no one on my team was looking at the head of people and saying why aren't you staffing our restaurants? We had a staffing crisis in 21 and a good team comes together to help solve the problem together. So immediately my head of IT is preferring offering up IT solutions, technology solutions to speeding up the application process. My chief marketing officer is offering up marketing dollars to help drive the hiring message. Everyone is saying how can we help solve this crisis. Not. Oh, that's not in my area. Because in the end we're all responsible for the results and how we leverage our expertise, how we leverage our resources. It's got to come out as results for the whole company in the end. There's a great saying that you can't have a hole in just one end of the boat.
- [19:18]
Jenny Rooney
That is exactly, exactly truth. Yes. So no. Point taken. Let me ask you this. There's so much happening right now. Obviously innovation continues to happen at a rapid pace. I'm going to ask you the question that I'm sure we're all going to be tired of soon, but I am curious, genuinely curious from your vantage point, the application of ChatGPT and conversational AI in your business, and I don't mean just marketing, but just broadly as a CEO, you know, how are you thinking about that, that application and sort of the ability for you to think about pockets of your company where you could accelerate process in a meaningful way?
- [19:59]
Frances Allen
Well, I certainly, I'm a huge believer in responsible use of AI. A little different to chatbox chat gbt I recognize, but I think that AI and the ability to be an assistant at the restaurant is going to be huge for our business and I, I'm making sure that we pioneer ways that we can leverage this new technology. So for example, we started with voice activating order ordering at the drive thru. We've where we also recognize that there are so many jobs in the back of the house that take up a lot of the manager's time and if the manager had an AI voice assistant, it could be a lot easier. So imagine you're taking inventory at 2:00 in the morning on a Monday and you've got an iPad where you're finding all the items and entering them in. Imagine if you had a AI that could just understand your voice, translate what you're saying about the products into the inventory lineup, then from there create the order for the following day. It will cut that job down by 75% in terms of time. So that's how we're trying to leverage machine learning, if you like, in the back of house. I don't even know if the marketing team are using ChatGPT to write copy and I don't think I want to know, but chief legal counsel probably does because I do not know how we're going to maintain copyright and all kinds of things with ChatGPT, but it certainly does help for us to come up with different ways of saying things.
- [22:16]
Jenny Rooney
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. No, to be seen on that front. I'm also curious. Look, we're coming off a summer where obviously I think the summer will be remembered for, you know, Taylor Swift, Barbie, I mean, these big brands that have just like become front and center in our consciousness in so many different ways. How do you regard the power of brand as we move forward? You know, it's such an elusive term. I think it's, it can be defined in so many different ways. From your vantage point, having led marketing and obviously in your CEO role now, and especially against the backdrop of so much change happening in the area of AI, et cetera, do you think there'll still be power and brand and how will that be defined as we move forward? So there's a lot there, but curious your thoughts?
- [23:07]
Frances Allen
I think the power brand will always be there and I think the ability for new brands to pop up on a regular basis, they've always been there, but you had to have big TV campaigns to get behind it. I think what we've seen is brands can pop up way faster, competition is innovating way faster. But the power of a brand and what the brand stands for I don't think is diminished in any shape or form. It's actually just much harder to control. So as marketers, we used to be able to define this is what our brand means or this is what you will believe that brand means. But I think today it happens much more by osmosis. And you have to, as a, as a leader, especially if you're leading the marketing, you have to understand your core brand DNA and what you mean to people. And then you have to continually make sure you live up to that so you can't fake things anymore. And you've got to be authentic and you've got to know who you are and what you stand for with each of your stakeholders. So one of the things that we're very conscious of is we tend to operate in low income communities. We're very mindful of what those low income communities are going through and trying to put back to those communities. I know a lot of brands give back. We believe that we give, we provide jobs, we provide community outreach. You know, we're supporting things like no Kid hungry, which really impact our customer. So trying to be true to our brand DNA and what we're trying to achieve and at the same time, very authentic as to why people use us and what they love about us.
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Jenny Rooney
Yep. We'll be back with more Marketing Vanguard right after this quick break. So, Francis, I have a few more questions I wanted to ask you, you know, as a business leader, now and again, from your vantage point, what do you. What concerns you the most? And sort of, you know, I hate to use the word fear, but what keeps you up at night? And I know that that's sort of an off asked question of leaders, but I truly think that I'm curious to get your thoughts. We're living through a lot right now, and there's so many things, certainly that brands and marketers are seeking to navigate, always have been. But, you know, the world continues to evolve at such a dramatic pace. And, you know, what is the one thing that keeps you up and that you're seeking to solve for as you move forward?
- [26:07]
Frances Allen
Well, I think the one thing that is very elusive in the restaurant business today, our business is built on traffic. And trying to get profitable.
- [26:19]
Jenny Rooney
Traffic.
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Frances Allen
Is the very tough challenge right now across the board. And you know, it used to be when you needed to give traffic a push, you just did a really low price offer. We can't afford to do that anymore, so. And everybody's doing the same thing. We saw this in 2017, 2018, with the, the burger price wars. It's just a race to the bottom. And so how do you keep profitable traffic and then once you've got it, how do you keep that momentum going? Momentum is such a hard thing to get going. And it's amazing when you see it moving. But then, you know, so I always worry about losing that.
- [27:08]
Jenny Rooney
Yep, yep. As you move forward, you know, especially as you, as you sit here in this moment, one of the things I ask people on the Marketing Vanguard podcast is about, is about a key decision, right? A key choice. Because every day, you know, as a leader, you're faced with forks in the road, you know, and frankly, every hour of every day, I mean, this is what being a leader is all about. What is a decision or a choice that you've made recently that you feel proudest of, but that more importantly has really materially driven the business in significant ways?
- [27:42]
Frances Allen
That's a great question, Jenny. And I think, yeah, leadership's been challenged in so many different ways over the last three years. I moved into this chair a month before COVID hit. And so we've been through just. The restaurant industry in general has been through the wringer, and our organization is no different. But I think for me about this time last year, we were going through unbelievable inflation impacts on our input costs and having to pass some of that on to customers, but we couldn't pass all of it on to customers. If you think about What I just said about our customers and we were losing. And I think our team was very demoralized as they saw our profit being chipped away and traffic at the same time. So we went into our planning for 2023 as an executive team, I think with a pretty demoralized group of people. And so my job there was to really give them something that they could control. A lot of what was going on was completely outside of our control and yet we were bearing the brunt of it. So we had a pretty good idea that the remodel program that we had developed during the first year of COVID was going to be very successful from some early designs or experiences we'd had. So the way I galvanized the organization to look at something positively and start driving the business again was around remodeling an entire market and what else we could do. And it just changed the mood from all this is happening to us to here is something we can run towards, something we control, something that we can do really quickly because that's who we are and we can be really proud of who we are. And we were able to just recenter the whole organization and that market finally fully opened up in about April timeframe and it is going gangbusters. So we now know that something that we had known for a while that our asset base was very old and tired and needs remodeling. And now we have the expedited proof, if you like, that if we give people a more compelling place to not only go visit for their food, but also go work in this brand can really exponentially accelerate growth.
- [30:47]
Jenny Rooney
Love that. Love that. Example. Last quick question for you that I ask of all of my guests on the Marketing Vanguard podcast is who's next? Who else should be interviewed? Who's the next industry leader, CMO or CEO that you recommend we interview for the Marketing Vanguard podcast? And I ask this because I think we need to continue to open, open this, open the door and open the space and open the visibility, you know, to new faces, new names, new people who are making meaningful impact in this industry. So.
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Frances Allen
Well, someone who I think is doing a fantastic job is our new CEO at Brinker. Also he's come up through the marketing ranks. Kevin Hockman. He's been in place there. I sit on the border. Brinker in full disclosure. Yeah, but, but I've just watched him drive for the those short term wins, you know, the long term plan, galvanize all the people. He's doing a tremendous job. And I think again, using what that that that real customer curiosity to drive change so he would be my vote.
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Jenny Rooney
Jenny, Love it, love it, love it. Francis, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure. It's been too long since I spoke with you last, but I'm so glad we were able to do this and it's just been lovely to catch up with you and hear more about your story and your perspective on this. So thank you.
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Frances Allen
Likewise, Jenny. Great to talk to you and thanks for having me.
- [32:26]
Jordan Praetano
Thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the Ad Week Podcast Network and Acast Creator Network. This podcast was produced by Jordan Praetano, executive produced by Al Manarino and John Heil, and edited by Lane McGibney at Boutwell Studios. You can listen and subscribe to all of Adweek's podcasts by visiting Adweek.com podcasts stay updated on all things Adweek Podcast Network by following us on Twitter at Adweek Podcasts. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an email@podcastdweek.com thanks for listening.