SONIC Drive-Ins sought to streamline marketing efforts at the store level while boosting brand consistency. Using Saepio marketing platform technology, SONIC provides a centralized system for corporate, franchise, and store marketers to develop and deliver marketing content. This saves stores time from reinventing materials and reduces costs by minimizing ad hoc marketing. Stores can now easily customize templates while maintaining brand standards. The system empowered local marketing while ensuring consistency across SONIC's 3,500 locations nationwide.

1. case study Sonic
Local Marketing Management
SONIC Drive-Ins®
Like many other marketing groups, the marketing team at SONIC
Drive-Ins® seeks to streamline marketing efforts at the store level,
while at the same time boosting brand consistency. To meet these
objectives, SONIC uses marketing platform technology.
Background Solution
With approximately 3,500 drive-ins nationwide and more than a To foster greater marketing success at the store level, SONIC looked
million customers served every day, SONIC has established itself to Saepio. With Saepio, SONIC is well equipped to deliver a one stop
as a leading purveyor of the classic drive-inexperience. With a resource for all a franchise’s marketing needs. Now, SONIC provides
history that goes back to the 1950s, customers at every SONIC corporate, franchise, and store level marketers with a single system
Drive-In can still enjoy being served by a smiling carhop, often on that streamlines marketing content development and delivery.
roller skates, that brings orders right to the car. SONIC’s innovative
Benefits
marketing continues to be instrumental to the company’s ongoing
With Saepio, SONIC’s stores save time because they don’t have to
success.
reinvent the wheel each time they want a new marketing piece. If
Challenge
a user needs an ad today, they cancreate it instantly, rather than
While SONIC’s corporate marketing team directed all national waiting weeks or a month to get it developed and produced. SONIC
and many local marketing programs, other local marketing efforts has realized significant cost reductions by minimizing time spent at
were managed by franchise owners and managers. Many stores the franchise level on ad hoc, one-off marketing deliverables, and
had long-established vendor relationships and found it cheaper associated agency expense. Not only can stores produce more, and
or more expedient to develop resources tailored to their specific more effective, marketing deliverables, but the company benefits from
locales, however, the corporate brand suffered through inconsistent more consistent brand execution across the board.
execution when these ad-hoc efforts were of poor quality. Not
only were the corporate resources not fully leveraged, but the
stores were spending significant time and money to develop their
own deliverables in addition to those that existed. Ultimately, this
resulted in profits not being optimized for the enterprise.

2. Moving from a “DIY” Approach to By offering easy customization and ordering capabilities, Saepio
Store Marketing is helping staff at stores save time and cut costs. For example,
marketing representatives and franchise staff can now resize an ad
SONIC’s marketing efforts have traditionally been managed by without incurring any agency expenses. In addition, with Saepio,
a mix of staff, including executives at corporate headquarters, SONIC’s corporate marketing team not only delivers a host of
marketing directors at the franchise group level and owners marketing assets, but also provides user guides that instruct people
and managers at the store level. While national marketing was how to use each piece so they can be as successful as possible.
relatively easy to coordinate and manage from the corporate offices,
marketing execution at the store level was another story. “Now our stores can cut agency costs, while increasing sales by
more fully and more effectively leveraging the tools available,”
In many cases, store management had long established relationships Fields stated.
with their own vendors, and they were accustomed to developing
their own deliverables. While they sometimes used resources Saepio helps make these automation and customization capabilities
developed at corporate, in many cases this required customization easy to use, which is critical given that people with a range of
of the pieces, whether that meant changing pricing, promotional backgrounds need to use the system. Today, the user base runs
dates, contact info, or other store-specific information that was the gamut of titles and backgrounds, including store operators,
either too cumbersome or not an option at all. franchise owners, corporate executives, franchise marketing
directors and more.
Empowering Local Stores while Ensuring
Brand Consistency “After an extensive evaluation of about 12 solutions, we found that
Saepio offered an unparalleled combination of expertise, robust and
With Saepio, SONIC can provide a centralized, convenient place to flexible product capabilities, and value,” Fields explained. “Now
access virtually all the resources a store may need for its marketing that the system has been deployed, all these characteristics have
efforts. Today, SONIC’s online storefront includes the following helped us maximize the value from our investment.”
items:
• Merchandizing elements, including virtually all promotional
and display items such as hardware, wall posters, bag stickers
and golf balls
To learn more about Saepio’s solutions, visit us
• All corporate advertisements, including some that can be
customized according to regional or store-specific needs at www.saepio.com or call 1.877.468.7613.
• Customizable bag stuffers, so users can create their own,
including customizing backgrounds, offers, pricing and
promotion dates
While Saepio affords local stores the flexibility they need to tailor
marketing vehicles to their specific needs, SONIC’s corporate
marketing group can also constrain such things as fonts, colors,
logo placement and more to ensure a high level of quality and
brand consistency.
“Saepio helps us completely protect branding,” said Lane Fields,
SONIC’s Local Store Marketing and Marketing Calendar Manager.
“Now we can create a consistent look and feel for deliverables that
people would otherwise be creating from scratch.”
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