Franchise marketing: rules for joint campaigns

In an established business, the owner often makes promotional decisions: placing adverts, agreeing discounts and checking sales. When you build a franchise network, the same campaign affects the budgets and commitments of independent businesses. Before entering into franchise relationships, set out the rules for joint marketing. This is not just about the size of the contribution, but above all about who makes decisions, what the shared budget pays for and how franchisees assess the results.

1. Separate shared brand advertising from franchisee recruitment

Start by organising the marketing expenditure in your own business. Review invoices, agency contracts and your publishing schedule. For each item, identify the audience and purpose: attracting customers to outlets, increasing brand awareness or recruiting new franchisees. These objectives are distinct and should not automatically be funded from the same budget.

Create three separate categories:

• shared marketing — brand materials, campaigns directing customers to outlets and a shared website;
• local marketing — activity relating to a particular outlet, such as advertising its opening;
• franchisee recruitment — advertising the franchise opportunity, presentations for prospective franchisees and attendance at recruitment events.

If franchisees are expected to fund any of these categories, state this explicitly. Make a particularly clear distinction between promoting outlets and expanding the franchise network itself. Franchisees should not discover only from an expenditure report that their contributions have paid for advertising aimed at other prospective franchisees.

Also establish whether the budget can cover head office work, software subscriptions, photography and agency fees. The label ‘marketing’ alone does not give franchisees enough information about how their money will be used.

2. Set out responsibilities in the agreement and workflows in a procedure

Poland has no standalone statute comprehensively regulating franchising, nor a mandatory public register of franchise systems. A franchise agreement is an ‘unnamed contract’, meaning it is not a separately defined contract type under Polish law. It is governed primarily by the Polish Civil Code, including the principle of freedom of contract and its limits. Depending on the matter concerned, rules on competition, unfair competition, intellectual property and consumer protection also apply.

There is also no specific statutory framework for accounting for a shared franchise marketing budget. Financial obligations, the scope of head office’s decision-making powers and franchisees’ rights to information should therefore be set out in the agreement. Do not replace these provisions with a general statement that the franchisee ‘participates in promotional activities’.

The agreement should specify how funds may be used, how the budget is approved, how often reports are provided and what happens to any unspent balance. Explain whether funds are carried forward to the next period and how they are accounted for when the franchise relationship ends. A separate bank account may make cash flows easier to monitor, but does not in itself give those funds any special legal protection.

The operating procedure, meanwhile, should describe the day-to-day workflow: submitting a campaign proposal, supplying materials, obtaining approval and publishing. It must not be used to introduce new financial obligations outside the terms agreed in the contract. Before offering a franchise, it is worth asking a lawyer to check that the documents are consistent with one another.

3. Establish a campaign approval process

Brand consistency does not require every local post or advert to await the owner’s individual approval. Create a library of approved photographs, templates and service descriptions. Specify which elements franchisees may change themselves, such as the address, opening hours or contact details.

For new ideas, designate a reviewer, set a response deadline and explain how amendments will be communicated. Also specify what happens if there is no response: whether publication remains on hold or the matter is referred to a deputy. This helps prevent both unintended publication and local activity being held up by one employee’s absence.

Before launching a campaign covering several outlets, prepare a short campaign brief. It should include:

• the promotion’s objective, target audience and dates;
• a list of participating outlets;
• the allocation of costs and tasks;
• the offer’s terms and any availability restrictions;
• how results will be measured and how advertising will be brought to an end.

Check that the message reflects the actual offer at every participating outlet. When announcing a price reduction, comply with the requirements of Poland’s Act on Information on the Prices of Goods and Services. Joint advertising does not provide a basis for imposing fixed or minimum resale prices on independent franchisees. The way the promotion works must also be assessed under competition law.

4. Account for expenditure and review the lessons with franchisees

Prepare a report template before collecting the first contribution. It should show the opening balance, income, expenditure by category, financial commitments and the amount still available to spend. Separate advertising placement costs from the costs of producing materials and managing the campaign. Franchisees should know what they have paid for, even if a single agency handles everything.

Present results in a way that reflects the objective. Advertising reach is not evidence of increased sales. If you measure enquiries, bookings or redeemed vouchers, explain the method and its limitations. Do not attribute the entire change in turnover to a campaign if opening hours or product availability changed at the same time.

Establish a process for submitting feedback and discussing plans. Consulting franchisees does not have to mean voting on every advert, but it should help identify local constraints before money is spent.

Practical takeaway: before launching your franchise, prepare a list of permitted expenditure, a campaign brief and a report template. Test them on your own advertising activity, then link them to clear provisions in the franchise agreement.