franchise-marketing
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Lauren Izaks Built a PR Agency by Teaching the Work Behind the Work
The former Chicago educator turned one humbling management mistake into a philosophy: build the system, teach the system, then give people room to grow.
The Agency That Bought Back Its Independence
A Fort Wayne firm spent half a century learning that the most valuable media plan begins with a local problem. In 2022, two longtime insiders bought the agency and made that lesson the business.
The Publicists Who Put PR on the Sales Floor
Franchise publicity usually lives in two worlds: the national story and the neighborhood opening. All Points built one Chicago agency to connect them - and to keep the lead alive after the headline lands.
The Boss Who Called Social Media a Fad Built Mainland’s Best Origin Story
Nick Powills left an agency after his ideas about social media went nowhere. His answer was to build a firm where the pitch, the publication, the ad and the analytics could live under one roof.
The Agency That Fired Its Own Names
Thunderly began when two respected franchise agencies admitted that their old reputations had become cages. The fix was not another campaign. It was to make themselves the first client of a new, integrated idea.
The Sacramento Agency That Turned 100 Franchise Openings Into a Marketing System
DTMA began as a relationship-driven creative shop. Its more interesting second act is a lesson in operational leverage: automate the agency, standardize the launch, and let local businesses borrow an entire marketing department.
The Ad Agency That Made Three Menu Screens Behave Like One
For 33 years, O'Leary and Partners helped national brands sound human in local markets. Its cleverest trick was not a slogan - it was making the awkward machinery of franchises, dealers and three-screen menu boards disappear.
Konnect Agency takes the story out of the press release
A farm visit, a cooking class, a summer-camp signup: the Los Angeles agency builds campaigns around things people can actually do. Its own growing pains explain why that takes more than a clever pitch.
Ajenda Public Relations knows how to make lunch worth talking about
A club sandwich gets a nightclub campaign. A burger chain offers tattoos. Inside the restaurant agency that gives familiar food a fresh reason to enter the conversation.
Overstreet Associates makes the brand survive the real world
A Bay Area agency puts the same identity on a sandwich bag, a hotel sign and a screen. Its specialty is the patient work of making all those pieces belong together.
SOCi Bet on One Marketer for Every Store. Then It Built 400,000 of Them.
The multi-location marketing company spent 14 years turning a deeply unfashionable all-in-one idea into an AI workforce. Now the pitch is simple: stop buying dashboards and start buying finished work.
Laura Baker Is Making Marketing Answer the Hard Question: Did It Grow the Business?
After marketing Tim Hortons, mattresses, investments and hardware, Laura Baker arrived at Weed Man with a practical thesis: the dashboard matters, but the customer’s memory matters more.
The Agency That Wants Every Franchise Location to Think Like Headquarters
Ignite Visibility spent a decade selling digital marketing services. Then it bought the software, web shops, franchise specialists, and lead engines needed to make thousands of local campaigns behave like one system.
Matthew Marx
Matthew Marx is the co-founder and CEO of Evocalize, a Seattle- and Austin-based collaborative marketing platform that lets franchises, brokerages, lenders and multi-location brands push automated, compliance-friendly digital ad campaigns down to their local partners. A Babson MBA and 20-year marketing-technology operator, he built Evocalize after product leadership stints at Bazaarvoice, Oracle Retail, PA Consulting in London, and the MassPRIM pension fund.
Oakscale Franchise Partners
Oakscale Franchise Partners is a New York-based, tech-enabled franchise development company that helps emerging brands scale into national franchise systems. It combines hands-on franchise consulting, data-driven lead generation and matchmaking, marketing, and selective equity investment - handling the full journey from concept to signed franchise agreements. Founded in 2017 by Joshua Kovacs and now part of Metric Collective, Oakscale has facilitated millions of franchise searches and worked with thousands of franchisor clients across fast-casual, pet care, mobility, and specialty retail.
Robert Huntington
Robert (Rob) Huntington is the CEO of Oakscale Franchise Partners and of Metric Collective, a New York-based group that builds, markets, and invests in franchise brands. A former high-school history teacher who ran the single largest Huntington Learning Center before earning an MBA at Kellogg and consulting at BCG, he now applies data, software, and digital marketing to a slow-moving industry, connecting entrepreneurs with franchise concepts and helping emerging brands scale. He led the angel round that seeded Oakscale with $1.2M in 2019 and frames franchising's challenge bluntly: the industry has been coasting downhill and now has to pedal.