The other day I took my puppy for a walk to a nearby TCBY – the same TCBY I’ve gone to for over 20 years. Every time I go, I find it delightful that the service, the menu items and the atmosphere have remained virtually the same. Though, all good things must come to an end, or in TCBY terms, at least to a rebranding. TCBY’s challenge is to rebrand and win over the hearts, and minds of local people like me who don’t want a change.

In an attempt to reach a younger audience looking for a place to hang out, TCBY has given their store a new look and design. Additionally, they have introduced customer self service, an attempt to give customers more control of their options.

While opening new stores under this new brand is doable, the real challenge is converting existing stores, and winning over long time customers like me. That means TCBY needs to have a local marketing strategy in conjunction with their national advertising to go with a strategy to reposition the brand over time so they win new customers without alienating traditional customers like me.

For companies like TCBY, Balihoo offers local marketing software for franchises and national brands with local marketing needs. Our software allows brands to better penetrate local markets, and to increase visibility to their new brand with customized local positioning and cross-medium marketing efforts touching consumers where they are.

The mistake I often see made is that national brands advertise with their common national ads in local markets and they think they are marketing locally. They aren’t by my terms. Local marketing means thinking at the local level – what works in one local market may not work in another. To exacerbate the point, most national brands aren’t positioned well to think locally, but, their store owners are.

Those individual owners know that their customers are different than another store’s, because they work among them. For that reason it’s beneficial to have advertising templates that can be effectively tailored by local owners in your rebranding kit.

Balihoo's ad builder software does just that, by enabling franchisee owners to efficiently and cost effectively customize pre-approved national brand materials. These owners can quickly access advertising creative, customize it, get brand approval and execute it to meet their market needs.

Marketing requires a local focus and so does rebranding. It turns out with Balihoo, rebranding locally has never been easier.  If you’re like TCBY looking to grow in your industry and add some sprinkles to your brand – check out Balihoo’s ad builder software and local marketing automation tools to ease your rebranding efforts.