Top 25 Franchise Marketing Leaders: Jenna Law — Senior Director of Marketing & Communications, Keke’s Breakfast Cafe

Name: Jenna Law
Role: Senior Director of Marketing & Communications
Brand: Keke’s Breakfast Cafe
1851 Franchise Newsroom

When it comes to how Jenna Law found her way to franchising, she sums it up simply: “In a way, it found me!” After her brother sent her the job posting for Keke’s Breakfast Cafe, she recognized the rare opportunity to build a marketing program that would support local business owners and the teams behind them. Entering the franchise world for the first time, she quickly discovered the added value of serving franchisees directly.

Today, Law leads Keke’s marketing strategy across more than 80 locations, balancing brand consistency with deep local insight while amplifying the exceptional guest experience that built the brand long before her team existed.

Q&A With Jenna Law, Senior Director of Marketing & Communications, Keke’s Breakfast Cafe

1851 Franchise: How did you find your way to franchising and franchise marketing?

Jenna Law: In a way, it found me! I’ve always been passionate about marketing, and my brother sent me a link to this role at Keke’s Breakfast Cafe when it first posted. I had never worked with franchisees before, but the opportunity to build a marketing program that would help business owners and their teams thrive was one I couldn’t pass up.

It really adds a personal element to my team’s work.

1851: What makes franchise marketing uniquely challenging (and rewarding) compared to corporate-only marketing?

Law: The most rewarding part is the real human impact. It’s not only the corporate bottom line anymore — it’s helping individuals build their businesses and support their families. It’s heavily relationship-based. Franchisees have this incredible entrepreneurial spirit that consistently pushes me to think outside the box, be flexible and naturally generate a pipeline of new ideas from the field.

Some days, it feels like I have more than 40 bosses since our team is funded by and accountable to the franchisees, so balancing our strategies with franchisee input and very local requests can be complex. But I genuinely feel there are more positives to the partnership than negatives.

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

Law: Understand the guest — deeply. Get out in the field and talk to them; don’t just rely on databases and sales data. That’s ultimately the marketing team’s entire job. Know the guest, know their problems and tell them how your brand solves them.

The best campaign in the world won’t move the needle if it doesn’t activate the right channels and resonate with your audience.

1851: What is an untapped marketing opportunity you see for franchise brands?

Law: Team member engagement — especially in social media, which is a fast-paced channel that demands authenticity. Influencers and UGC are great, but let’s dig into EGC: employee-generated content.

When team members feel personally engaged, the guests feel it, and local storytelling creates incredibly powerful connections with the community.

1851: What is one marketing fad or buzzword that you believe will actually deliver real results in the coming year?

Law: Not AI. At least not for full-service.

In all seriousness, probably loyalty. It helps guests feel they get more value and personalized content, which is more important than ever. But it has to mean more than discounts and coupons. Those can put brands in a downward discount spiral.

Loyalty should mean exclusive experiences, sneak peeks and creative ways of personalizing visits to make guests truly feel like VIPs.

1851: What’s your boldest franchise marketing take?

Law: No level of marketing in the world can fix poor guest service and operations. It damages the entire brand, not just one location. Don’t invest a dollar into marketing until you can deliver a superior experience to every person driven in by those tactics.

It’s something I loved from day one at Keke’s — long before the marketing team existed, there was a commitment to excellence in operations and service. That’s how this concept organically grew to more than 50 locations before being acquired, and it’s a story I now get to craft in our messaging.

However, I have no qualms pausing marketing at a low-performing location until they have a plan to improve within their four walls.

Also, email’s not dead!

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