INTRO

With over 4,000 locations around the world, Paris Baguette is a French-inspired bakery café franchise with a presence in multiple countries. Offering breads, cakes and pastries baked fresh daily, Paris Baguette boasts a consumer offering that is becoming increasingly difficult to find in the consumer space.

PROBLEM

While Paris Baguette built incredible growth around the globe, its name was most popular overseas. When the brand began pursuing franchise expansion in the U.S., it established several flagship locations in key markets. The franchisor was confident in its business model and consumer offerings; the missing piece was awareness. In order to sell more franchises and launch into an explosive development plan in the U.S., Paris Baguette would need to become a household name.

SOLUTION

While the Mainland team leveraged a full-circle strategy, calling on content pieces, PR pitches and paid ads to gain as much exposure as possible across multiple platforms, it focused on both local business coverage and major national opportunities.

RESULT

Mainland secured a placement on Fox & Friends where Paris Baguette North America CEO Darren Tipton and Senior Research and Development Manager Yvette Castillo joined the Fox team to discuss the franchise opportunity over fresh-baked Paris Baguette goods. The segment reached over 1 million viewers and initiated an incredible surge in traffic to the Paris Baguette franchise development website.

HOW MAINLAND WON

In building its strategy for Paris Baguette, one of Mainland’s primary goals was to keep the brand name in the press at all times.

“Our focal point is a strategy that keeps getting the Paris Baguette name out there,” said Mainland Vice President Julie Maw. “We thought, ‘How can we make it so that someone can’t go a day without seeing Paris Baguette in the news?’”

This persistence and commitment to ongoing exposure on a daily and monthly basis served to increase awareness and build the brand’s credibility, which ultimately strengthened the integrity of the media pitch and caught the eye of the Fox & Friends team.

“The Fox & Friends appearance was a great opportunity to secure national coverage for Paris Baguette,” said Maw. “From a franchise development perspective, having Darren Tipton join the show allowed an audience of over 1 million people to learn about the opportunity directly from the CEO.”

After the segment aired, the Paris Baguette franchise development website experienced an influx of traffic of a size never seen before, and inquiries from potential franchisees continue to stream in.

“We have heard from a new franchisee that the Fox & Friends segment was what prompted him to inquire about opening a Paris Baguette even though he was previously unfamiliar with the brand,” added Maw. “The Paris Baguette brand sells itself, so our mission is to get that story in front of even more eyes, and this is exactly what the Fox & Friends segment allowed us to do.”