Corie King, director of franchise marketing at Mrs. Fields, a concept within the Famous Brands portfolio (along with TCBY) sat down with QSR to discuss life directing one of the category’s most-nostalgic brands. Can you create an emotional connection to drive impulse buys and repeat visits? How are dessert franchises navigating mall settings and maximizing visibility?
Let’s start with Mrs. Fields’ efforts these days to draw in customers. It’s been a dynamic landscape, in terms of traffic, and even more so when you’re in a foot-traffic reliant environment like a mall.
The mall is general can be a challenging dynamic. It has been ever shifting since COVID. And we definitely saw a significant change with people excited to return. Now, we’re seeing a little bit of a different shift. The key for us that has remained consistent, COVID or post-COVID, is two key things within: We market from the inside out. We have a lead focus on capturing the awareness and the intention of the customers within the mall. We primarily do this through mall advertising, ideally interactive digital, if they have it. We do a fair amount of sky banners and things of that nature.
A lot of malls we’re in are very large. Not all customers will make it through the entire venue. So you have to make sure they’re aware you’re there and where you’re located. Those two things are very vital in helping a customer find us.
We also do a lot of collaborations with local businesses. Whether it be through offering managers specials or employee discounts, we’re working closely with them. Events. Providing gifting opportunities. Leveraging the business that’s already there—standard, regular customers visiting or existing employees or local businesses.
Our franchisees, first and foremost, focus on the community. For mall businesses, that community is the mall and those other businesses and business owners that are there. So they do a fantastic job building those relationships as well as working with the local mall marketing and staff to make sure they’re staying connected to everyone they possibly can.
We leverage a lot of the mall activities as well. Of course, things like your typical holiday pictures with Santa, Easter, and any opportunity our franchisees can participate in. It’s a part of our culture to give back.
What are your broader thoughts on the state of malls and how you market within that universe?
It’s been challenging. Malls are changing. We’re seeing a shift in lifestyle destination malls changing to try to incorporate more families and create reasons for people to be there for longer periods. And those are certainly the malls we have top of our list to be a part of.
As far as standing out in malls, in general, marketing typically, as you know, is focused mostly on sight. We do a lot of that. We can’t not be in that business. But for us, we’re very fortunate to be able to leverage and lean in on the sense of smell. It has a lot of different ways it plays out. It can attract traffic from far out in the mall, whether different levels or where we’re perhaps back in the corner. We get a lot of feedback where they’ll say, ‘we could smell this from down the way.’
We know that it works. It attracts people. It gets them to pause and stop and look around. But the other thing that is very cool for us is the sense of smell, particularly with baked items, like cookies, ignites memories or nostalgia. It puts you back in a place you can associate with that smell. That’s super cool given we’re a very nostalgic brand. We have a lot of history. We’re born out of a home-baked concept. The recipe is a very traditional home-baked cookie. It’s intended to feel warm and cozy and reminiscent of your childhood, or your grandma, or mom, baking. We have that advantage over other brands where we can leverage that sense of smell to attract customers or close the deal and get them to buy.
So do you do anything to maximize that “scent marketing,” or does it just happen?
A little bit of both. We have a very open store concept where we bake out in the open. We bake throughout the day. Most of that is driven through demand and our promise to deliver fresh baked throughout the day. So we don’t necessarily bake and then sell throughout. Our goal is to always replenish with fresh product. That open concept and continuous baking is a standard process that lends itself perfectly to keeping scent in the air.
There is no artificial scent that we use. It’s purely baking of our cookies. And I think the layout allows it to stay and permeate throughout the mall. They’re not doing it behind doors and a wall. It naturally dissipates as they bake.
I think the other thing is we sample a lot. We encourage our franchisees as part of the business overall to sample, whether it’s sampling new cookies or just sampling our favorite chocolate cookie. We sample outside the store as well as go into other businesses. That’s certainly another component of it. We’re taking freshly baked cookies down to other businesses. That’s going to distribute to the mall.
What are your thoughts on the larger dessert category and the so-called “cookie wars?” It does feel as though there’s been an uptick in the market.
Right now, the state of where we are, especially post COVID, customers, whether they be franchisees or not franchisees, everyone is looking for a way to add joy and add excitement or connection. Treats generally allow that, right? Ice cream. Cookies. Bakeshops. There’s that trend of indulging and having time. We see this a lot with [sister brand] TCBY—families that come to enjoy the time together as well as a sweet, healthier treat. I think that’s where the trend is coming from and why you see more and more places pop up. This desire to be able to go out and enjoy a treat mutually with friends and family and connect in ways that are reminiscent of 20 or more years ago when we weren’t so distracted by devices and other things in our fast-paced lives.
I see a lot of mom-and-pop shots around where I live as well. And a lot of it is built around that excitement of treating yourself and enjoying that time with friends and family.
