--- title: "Cut Through the Noise: It's Time to Rethink Generational Marketing in Franchising" url: https://burnaze.com/article/294cc72b-b82d-4813-ad47-90cc520caa80 source: "Franchising.com" original_url: https://www.franchising.com/articles/20260322_cut_through_the_noise_its_time_to_rethink_generational_marketing_in_fra.html author: "Jack Monson" category: "Franchise Industry" industry: "Franchise Industry" topics: ["Marketing"] published: 2026-05-31T08:00:00.000Z modified: 2026-10-31T16:31:25.647Z image: https://imgs.franchising.com/art/articles/10253_plate.jpg --- # Cut Through the Noise: It's Time to Rethink Generational Marketing in Franchising **TL;DR:** Franchise professionals should rethink their marketing strategies to effectively reach potential franchisees, focusing on authenticity and relevance in a saturated market. The next generation of business owners wants to hear authentic stories from brands they would want to partner with. *By Jack Monson, originally published in Franchising.com on 2026-05-31. [Read the original](https://www.franchising.com/articles/20260322_cut_through_the_noise_its_time_to_rethink_generational_marketing_in_fra.html).* ## Story On this year’s Social Geek New Year’s Day podcast, I asked 26 franchise professionals about their goals for '26. Many franchisors on this mega-panel shared goals that included being more intentional with their actions, being more focused on specific outcomes, and filtering out the noise to spend more time on the signal. Don’t you think the potential franchisees we’re all trying to reach might be thinking the same thing? We will soon be at a saturation point with the amount of noise, distractions, and media disruptions that are taking us off task. The amount of junk messages and AI-generated slop in the form of blogs and social media posts increases every day. There is now 1,000 times more content reaching audiences with only the same 24 hours per day in which they can consume. Your audience is tuning out anything that isn’t completely relevant to them. I’m not a fan of putting too much emphasis on labels like Gen Z, Millennial, or Gen X. Painting any group of 80-plus million people with the same brush is lazy. There are, however, generational changes in marketing content consumption that we must recognize. For instance, newspapers, direct mail, and online portals may still have occasional relevance, but it may not make sense to spend many resources there to reach your best future franchisees. Here are some ideas to help you capture the attention of the right prospects in this generational shift to share your compelling opportunities. Stop Overspending on Ads Stop paying for eyeballs that will never own a business, let alone yours. How many dollars are you spending on audiences that consider you irrelevant? How much of your budget goes to targets who will never be interested in your franchise opportunities? In 2026, you’re not looking for mass numbers of tire kickers and the same old franchise shoppers. That’s for portals and maybe search ads. Social media outlets, specifically TikTok, Meta, and Linked-In, are now all about showing your value to people who are qualified and then engaging with them. They may not know what they’re looking for, and they may not even know that they’re looking. Don't Create AI Slop AI-generated ads and posts are easy, cheap, and fast. Sure, it sounds like a no-brainer for marketing, but messages seen as inauthentic will be the first ignored by your best prospects. How many times will a great potential candidate see a phony or insincere ad before they block you on the platform or in their mind? The next generation of business owners wants to hear, see, and read authentic stories by brands with whom they would want to partner. Approach New Channels Most brand marketers with whom I speak have been creating shared content or paid content on Google, Facebook, and blogs for one or two decades. Those channels alone will no longer cut it. Make sure you’re telling your stories on these platforms: **Reddit**. Users are telling you every day what they need and how to speak to them. My team now has multiple brands not only searching and engaging on Reddit, but also advertising to millions for whom Reddit has replaced Google. **TikTok**. Speaking of replacing Google, millions of people now go to TikTok first to find answers that are most relevant to them. If you can’t answer their questions in a short-form video, they will find someone who can. **Podcasts**. This is now “the news,” and it’s where people who value authenticity the most are spending many hours per week. Focus on Strategic Targets Too many marketing departments and their agencies are still building target lists that don’t reflect the strategies the sales team and executive leadership team have developed and agreed upon. It’s easy to convince themselves that the old lists still matter. Another distraction is your old group of personas. As discussed in a Franchise Update magazine article last year, the age of personas is coming to an end. Replace personas with situations and intent. Let go of the old lists, targeting, and personas. All of the platforms have developed more effective ways to reach the candidates you need. Let them do it! Let them put their AI magic to work and find the targets most likely to engage with you. Amplify and Integrate Some brands will say that paid media works for them, but earned media does not. Or they might say that PR helps them grow, but ads are not worth it. This is shortsighted and two-dimensional at best. In this saturated and fragmented landscape, brands must have their messages in as many places as possible. To serve the large language models now, all messages in all those places must integrate the same key messages. Without clear, concise, and consistent messages about your brand and opportunities, the next generation of candidates will perceive your efforts as noise and quickly move on. **Jack Monson** *is the chief growth officer of franchise marketing agency Thunderly and has been working with franchise brands in marketing for more than 15 years. He is also the chair of the IFA’s Marketing & Innovation Committee and the host of Social Geek, the most popular franchise podcast. ## Entities - Franchising.com (publication) - General (sector) - franchise marketing (topic) - Google (company) - social media marketing (topic) - LinkedIn (company) - Jack Monson (person) - TikTok (company) - Meta (company) - IFA (regulator) - targeted advertising (topic) - Reddit (company) --- Originally reported by Jack Monson, Franchising.com (https://www.franchising.com/articles/20260322_cut_through_the_noise_its_time_to_rethink_generational_marketing_in_fra.html). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/294cc72b-b82d-4813-ad47-90cc520caa80).