Great Clips Partners with Fan Controlled Football League, Scoring Another Touchdown for Franchisees

Great Clips became the Official Hair Salon of Fan Controlled Football this year through a new partnership with the Fan Controlled Football League, a new fantasy football league that began in February 2021. For franchisees, the partnership boosted brand awareness, drove sales in their local markets and helped them reach a wide variety of customers. Great Clips is the world’s largest hair salon brand with over 4,400 salons and more than 1,000 franchisees throughout 180 markets in the United States and Canada.

“We were excited to partner with FCF as they embarked on a compelling new concept that enables fans, like our customers, to be a part of the action,” said Lisa Hake, vice president of marketing and communications for Great Clips, Inc. “We enjoyed integrating the Great Clips brand into the overall viewing experience and spotlighting great moments and plays throughout the season.”

What the Partnership Entailed

The Great Clips brand was integrated into a variety of FCF in-game and post-game programming, focused on recognizing and highlighting great plays and players.

The live games took place on Twitch, a live streaming service. Unlike other fantasy leagues where fans simulate being a team owner or manager, FCF gives fans the controls. Fans are invited to watch football games played on an FCF-branded field and call the plays in real-time. As this is happening, the Great Clips name appears. Great Clips was the official sponsor of the game’s instant replays, referred to as “Great Clips.” Each week, fans had the opportunity to vote for the best play of the week as part of the “Great Clips of the Week'' campaign on FCF’s website and mobile app. Weekly game-highlight video clips were named the “Great Clips of the Game'' and were shared across FCF’s social media channels. Great Clips branding also appeared in the arena during games and broadcasts, online and across the league’s mobile application.

The brand’s goal with the FCF partnership was to appeal to a younger demographic and bring that demographic into their salons.

How Great Clips’ Former Sports League Partnerships Benefitted Franchisees

FCF is not the first sports league to partner with the hair salon giant. Since 2018, Great Clips has been the Official Hair Salon of the National Hockey League. For the past few years, Great Clips has highlighted the iconic hockey hair in campaigns such as “Legendhairy Greats,” which invited hockey fans to vote for their favorite hockey hair in a clever bracket-style playoff and in 2021 brought back the “Legendhairy Lineup” sweepstakes involving both current and alumni NHL players with fan favorite hockey hair styles. In addition to boosting online engagement, Great Clips issued a call to action: Go get your own hockey haircut.

The result? The campaign generated 25 news stories and reached 74.7 million social media impressions, increasing awareness and bringing customers to the brand’s franchisee-owned salons for a cut.

How the FCF Partnership Helped Great Clips’ Franchisees

By executing its campaign across online, social media, broadcast news channels and thousands of Great Clips salons, the brand sought to raise brand awareness, increase online engagement, reach a more diverse audience and, most importantly, bring new customers to its franchise locations.

The new creative marketing strategy to drive business to Great Clips is the best of both worlds — it promotes the brand on both a national and local level while establishing connections with customers old and new.

The total investment to open a Great Clips salon ranges from $146,750 to $302,400. For more information, visit https://www.greatclipsfranchise.com/.