Franchise Marketing Leader Peter Wiley Hot Head Burritos

For Peter Wiley, franchising is part of his family’s legacy. His father was involved with Pizza Hut when it originally launched. His family developed Skyline Chili when he was in high school. His brother spent more than 20 years as a Subway franchisee. And in 2007, Wiley helped his brother launch what would become Hot Head Burritos.

From the very beginning, Wiley created logos, produced national advertising, managed TV and radio spots, and built the brand’s marketing engine from the ground up. Today, he remains the creative force behind Hot Head Burritos’ marketing, bringing a blend of old-school franchise grit and new-school digital strategy to a brand that continues to grow across the country.

Franchise marketing background

Wiley: My dad was part of Pizza Hut when it originally launched. Restaurants have been in the family a long time. We did some Skyline Chili development when I was in high school. After that, my brother got into Subway franchising — he was a franchisee for over 20 years.

In 2007, I helped him launch Hot Head Burritos. I was making logos and doing all the marketing across the country. We were doing TV, radio, all the marketing materials.

Challenges and rewards

Wiley: From a consumer marketing perspective, if you are a brand without any franchisees to answer to, it can be a lot easier. You make the decision and go with it.

But as a franchisor, we really have a responsibility to our franchisees. You have to create materials that at least appeal a little bit to all of our franchisees. You deal with one opinion — I have 50 opinions. It can be a little bit different in the franchise world.

1851: What is the single most powerful lever a marketing team can pull to directly impact franchisees’ profitability at the unit level?

Marketing strategies

Wiley: We run a mix — we run a little bit of all of them. In most markets, we have co-ops so we have enough money to buy a range across multiple platforms. We are on 20 to 30 different channels depending on the market. We find that mix is the best, whether it’s social media, influencers, etc. Some people just Google, but others go on ChatGPT, Instagram, Reddit, etc. So that is our big focus right now: digital word-of-mouth. It can be inexpensive.

Wiley: We’ve started working with a platform that does web-based games. It allows you to add our skin or graphics to 100 different games available. People love to sit on their phones and play Candy Crush, etc. My wife loves phone games! It has been a really fun niche to get into. It creates engagement so people are thinking about your brand every day for hours a month. You can play the game and get a free burrito if you get a certain number of points.

Wiley: You can’t get away without saying AI. It can be very effective, but it’s also a challenge. ChatGPT is essentially a search engine now, so how can we leverage that to get results in our category? You’re paying attention to where it shows up and how it gets in there.

We’re also playing with AI video — storyboarding our commercials with AI. A lot of digital agencies are using that to improve placement.

Wiley: A good mascot can go a long way. I was dressed as Leroy, our mascot, at the recent MCPU conference talking to prospective franchisees. That’s a fun thing to do from a franchisor perspective!