• Jeff goes old school as he shares some of his early music inspirations
• He shared what is an iconic brand
• His journey from journalism to marketing, with a stop or two in between
• How the guest experience at Mary Brown's changed as we all went through the pandemic
• He even tells us the biggest secret - the identity of Mary Brown
• His role not only B2C, but B2B as he look to expand their footprint of franchise locations

[00:00:22] Jeff Barlow: I am doing excellent. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:34] Jeff Barlow: Well, I think I fell in love with a few clothing brands, but it's now too embarrassing dimension.

What brands those were. But

[00:00:45] Jeff Barlow: There's a possibility of that, but we'll keep that quiet. I think probably. It goes back to one of my passions, which might be a music. And I was a huge fan. I, I grew up on hip [00:01:00] hop and the emergence of hip hop, and I really fell in love with a lot of the label.

That, that emerged, from that. And, you know, it could be like Def jam records or fresh records or Mo wax, just the whole curation of artists that I liked. And then you wrap that up with this like really cool brand. Uh, and I could always discover new artists from it. So I'd have to say. Indi e, hip hop labels and actually indie rock labels too.

So, like Canada zone, dine alone records, I think they're kind of legendary in Canada for top flight music. So anything to do with music and curation and creativity. I just really enjoyed those, those brands. And

[00:01:45] Jeff Barlow: Yeah. Exciting times for a Canadian musicians.

[00:02:01] Jeff Barlow: I think an iconic brand. I mean the fundamental and believe me, I am no marketing expert. I can explain that in a little bit, but what it means to me, how I live my life as a marketer is a good brand.

Creates emotion and that emotion could be many things. It could be an emotion in my case that, makes people hungry. That's a good sign. It could be an emotion that, has community values, but at the end of the day, a good brand invokes emotion. I guess the second thing I would look for is.

Sorry. There's nothing better than operating in a brand that has a consistent truth. It could be that one sort of DNA point or something in their genes that they follow throughout their entire. Bran history. And like when you have that consistent truth, you can be creative. You can go in different marketing directions, but as long as that consistent truth, that core truth of the brand is always like a page flip away or a thought away or something that aligns, uh, throughout no matter what you do and all your active.

I love it.

[00:03:46] Jeff Barlow: Weirdly I went to school for journalism. I did not work a day in journalism. It may have had to do with something about moving to a really remote climate and working for next to nothing money, even back [00:04:00] then.

And I actually ended up in advertising on the supplier side. So, of course there's a ton of marketing that. But, I'm definitely not a classically trained marketer. I I'm not from the P and G school. And so I've actually only been in a pure marketing role on the client side for a little over three years.

But, I think that's what they liked about me when they heard me is they didn't want your classic QSR and mark. Nothing against the classic pure marketers that there's some really amazing marketers. I think they just wanted to a little bit of a different, a different change. So, what I lacked in experience directly on client side and specifically in the QSR category, I think I brought.

[00:05:09] Dave Forde: Sure, but sounds like you've hit the ground running.

So, you know, looking back over the last three years, what would you say would be some of the biggest changes that you've made for yourself professionally and personally?

It's it's about how does the guest. How does the guests feel when they walk in our doors? Our stores as clean as absolute possible. Do the menu screens make sense as you're reading them? Every in the pandemic keeping people. I mean, like, [00:06:00] there's just, there's a thousand jobs in one. So I think my learning and my journey on the client side has been all about trying to understand that and trying to draw upon what had done in the past to try and improve that.

And sometimes listening and learning is a better situation. So I listen and learn and then try and act on my best instinct and, married with some good day. And that's the other piece is I've never immerse myself in data as much as I have in this role to make decisions these days it's the easy path is to go with your gut and hope for the best.

But I, I, I'm not sure that that, that, works. It works once in a while and, you know, quick creative idea, but if you're guiding entire restaurant's experience and a guest experience, you need a lot of data to back that.

It was new for everyone. [00:07:00]

And, I've mentioned this before in an interview like weed. Had to scrap our entire marketing plan and we have to go what makes sense for people as this pandemic starting? And we realized that news people want news more than anything else. They, they, they, they may like spicy check-in, but that's not what's foremost on their minds.

Post Media digital newspaper, for Canadians for a month and in some cases a month and a half. So it's what we would constantly try. And during the pandemic to figure out what do our guests need, how can we best serve them? It may not be a menu item and maybe just giving them news so that they can get ideas to feed their kids or, entertain their family, or just to learn more about what's happening with the unfolding situation..

[00:08:46] Jeff Barlow: I just knew from my past is there they're one of the largest news purveyors in the country.

News paywalls dropped.

[00:09:23] Jeff Barlow: Mary Brown's chicken to me as Canada's best kept secret. My job is to change the best kept secret part of it, but I mean, really what it is is how many enterprise level.

Even our coleslaw is, is, is made in so I think to me, it's, it's how we prepare our food and you can taste it. I don't, I'm not. Drop a, a marketing commercial on you. But honestly, when you, when you come to a, it's a real, one of the biggest reason I joined is when I tasted this food, I got, this is something special I can get behind this.

[00:10:47] Dave Forde: Now.

Okay. You say it's Canada's best kept secret, but I'm going to, I'm going to push the envelope here who was married.

And I don't want to tell you conclusively, what. They were a guest at our house or whether she was operating a small, independent little store, they tried it and flipped out and they said, look, we love this recipe. We'd love to bring this back to Canada and do something with it. So, she agreed that they bought the recipe.

They brought it to Canada, they evolved it and it became Marie Brown's check-in, as we know it today.

[00:11:41] Jeff Barlow: Well, I can give you a taters, so we have fries, but I highly recommend our taters.

That's the, the, the fresh cut, experience of Mary Browns.

[00:12:10] Jeff Barlow: Yeah, well, yeah, a lot of things and you can just cut me off whenever, but, it's amazing as a marketer and I don't, it's not prevalent that every brand knows who their guests are. Exactly. Like they run digital campaigns and they optimize against who engages with it. I mean, that's one way, but if you're conclusively spending millions of dollars in marketing and you don't conclusively know who your audience is, you may have a, a problem.

And you know, there's a whole bunch of other attributes that I won't get into, about that we know who they are. We know where they live, we know their proximity to store. And we started getting into. You know, w what, what did they like about us and all that. So after doing all that, then we started invested in marketing.

So we went from. Potentially kind of like a little bit of an older school, traditional marketing methods that involve maybe, you know, direct mail and couponing, to digital acquisition and being where, our audiences are and, and w where guests can feel more real. We recognize the travel or the, the challenge of traditional media.

Uh, and that includes, you know, exclusivity in that, in the check-in category, as far as, official chicken sandwich, official chicken restaurant of the Jays, a huge media campaign with them, spots of course, in the broadcast and then marketing rights and logo usage. So we're really proud of that. And we're going to expand that and that could include, utilize an athlete's are gonna include.

So we have, loyalty points, that works that, and we're also going to drive a value and a, special offerings through, through the app. So, and it just allows us to give better offers, because we know who our guests are at that point. We don't want to give, you know, a, a 18 piece face to a, you know, a struggling student just trying to get through university and vice versa. We also, did a lot of work in our amazing PR company, with rock-it is Jillian's on the call now. They've been fantastic. Just sort of amplifying our, our news. We have, we custom built a food truck to travel to concerts and, events, not really [00:16:00] to make money, but more just like our kind of our insight.

If you try a spot one bite of our food. And it can, I can't guarantee you, but I will almost guarantee you, you become a, a loyal guest with Mary Browns. So that's the primary, reason for that and menu innovation or snack menu. We just lost our Nashville, sandwich and taters, which is amazing.

Highly encourage you to try that. And then. Trying to be better, on our creative side. So we, we did work with, we created a one acre crop circle in a local farmer's field, to showcase where potatoes came from. That was a lot of fun. And we had, drones up there and we worked with a local farmer to make it all happen, which was a.

[00:17:01] Dave Forde: And I think you guys also did something with, another charity was a big brothers, Canada, boys, and boys and clubs court.

So, Mary Browns as a brand at first of all, it starts with our owner, Greg Roberts. He's like the most philanthropic kind gentle guy. You'd like, he is your absolute, like. Perfect Canadian as far as community goes. And so we jumped behind this charity and our whole mission is to, support Canadian youth, whether they're having challenges or marginalized, whatever that situation is.

[00:18:01] Dave Forde: You know, on that social issues, you know, over the last couple of years, consumers have become. So much more passionate about the world around them. I mean, they always have been, but it just seems like over the last couple of years has been amplified that much more.

How do you guys choose to be involved in social issues?

Um, I think our role and it's the similar to what we did with the, you know, dropping the paywall is how can we help our guests navigate through. Tougher situation. So, uh, when the pandemic started, the other thing we did is we, we, we [00:19:00] dedicated ourselves to non-stop food delivery, to frontline workers, uh, as many great brands that, and whether that be, you know, a mental health shelter use shelter, uh, like our frontline workers for me was our grocery store workers.

They have to work no matter what. So we, we dropped food to them as well. Um, with Ukraine, we're trying to, help a little bit and our own small way and, and provide, uh, some help with accommodation and, and, uh, flights. And, you know, if they, if they need a job, you know, it doesn't matter if they work one day in Mary Browns or if they want to work the rest of their lives.

That's okay. We're just trying to provide, help, relieve support. So that's how I feel our role is in, in a social situation, not to dictate. To be on the backend of support. That's how we support our communities.

The history of mirror Brown's chicken, when did it first [00:20:00] starts? You know, where, where are you today in terms of a physical locations? All the good stuff.

And, uh, definitely, uh, Quebec is, is on our mind for, for future growth. Um, also international growth as well. Uh, we currently have over 200 locations, um, across Canada and a crazy goal to open, uh, almost 15 new locations in 2022 alone. So, uh, we are in explosive growth. And I think as you've seen throughout the pandemic, uh, QSRs, uh, in particular, uh, ours, and actually not in particular, any QSR, uh, many of them were built for the [00:21:00] pandemic.

I mean, when you have drive-throughs you have digital delivery. In our case, we have an app. It was, the pandemic was a horrible time, but, we thrived as did many other QSRs, just because of the different variables in the different options you had to order food from a QSR.

So, sorry, you said, did I catch you, right? You said you were gonna expand beyond Canada as well.

So, we're definitely have our eyes, not just on expansion in Canada, uh, but beyond our borders.

[00:22:09] Jeff Barlow: Yeah, that's a really good point. Um, again, it goes back into that role as a, as a marketer. It's, uh, it'd be nice to say it's just all B to C or a business to a consumer, but it's not, um, on the B2B side, you're always, you know, you're, you're talking to potential operators or franchisees, uh, and not just that, the, the, the investment community, as well as, I mean, there's so many different.

People that look at you beyond, as a guest, uh, whether investors or, uh, people who want to run their own business, which is a lot these days entrepreneurs. So you have to consider all of their, uh, their thoughts, desires, suggestions, and be able to market to them in an effective way.

VP of marketing Mary Brown's chicken. He is a man with a mission and he's moving things around. Appreciate your time today, Jeff,