Yoga Classes and Adopting Donkeys: How Bad Ass Coffee Keeps it Interesting

The pressure to stand out in the crowded food and beverage franchise world is real. Brands aren’t just competing on taste — they’re battling for visibility, loyalty, and consistency across hundreds of locations.

In 2024, the U.S. had nearly 200,000 quick-service restaurant franchises, making it one of the most competitive segments in the franchise industry. Thriving in this space requires more than good coffee or clever branding — it demands strategic execution at both the national and local level.

Ivy Hanks, Director of Marketing at Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, knows this firsthand. With a background in brand and field marketing at fast-growing franchise brands like Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Ivy brings a strategic, customer-first approach to every initiative she runs.

We sat down with Ivy to learn more about her journey, notable career wins, and how she's navigating the fast-paced world of franchise marketing.

At Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, we drive a lot of marketing direction from HQ, but we also know that on-the-ground relevance is key.

Dawne Hostetter, our Sr. Franchise Marketing Manager, oversees all local store marketing, including support for both new store openings and existing locations. She created, with the help of our designer, plug-and-play templates for local store marketing, and franchisees can input the info they want but with the foundational brand look and feel.

Where franchisees need the most support is with print and in-store events — and that's where Dawne works closely with them to ensure brand consistency.

This type of support is often needed at locations with small teams. They have awesome ideas that they bring to us, and might need extra support or ideas to execute them. Our primary focus is to support our franchisees, whether that’s in operations or marketing. Timing plays into this, too. Someone in the community might reach out to one of our franchisees or operators and ask them to sponsor something within the next few days, so we’re happy to help as much as we can by providing creatives or resources for execution.

We also manage all corporate-level social media, including the state Instagram accounts, which helps ensure consistency across digital platforms. In line with this, if a franchisee would like to post anything on their location’s Facebook page or state’s Instagram account, they would send the content to us, and we’ll take care of it.

Another cool thing is that at Bad Ass Coffee, the operations team is in on it, too. Everyone knows our brand and how we should appear, because we provide ample training materials and we’re consistent with our approach.

Our Chief Brand Officer, Iain Douglas, has this great phrase: "Freedom within a framework." It sums up our approach because when you purchase a franchise, you're essentially buying a brand in a box, yet the franchisee owns and builds the brand in their own community.

Additionally, we work with our franchisees to come up with new, on-brand ideas because we understand that what works in one region isn't necessarily going to communicate the same in another area.

For instance, our McKinney location sponsored their local donkey shelter via sponsorship of a specific donkey, so we helped them make a sign for that donkey’s stall with our logo.

Another great example is that our Kentucky locations have trailers that they take to the Major League Soccer games. We help them with the creative for the trailer wrap, menus, operations, etc.

Navigating site-specific restrictions like landlord rules or other limitations that vary by location.

We do our best to work around those constraints creatively. One of our Naples locations, for instance, isn't allowed to have outdoor seating due to site restrictions. So, they partnered with a local yoga instructor who hosts classes on the beach across the street, and this encourages guests to grab their coffee before or after class.

Another challenge (or opportunity!) is several of our locations are in more tourist-centric areas. Think Florida, Virginia Beach, etc. As such, it's hard to maintain loyalty because some might only be there for a week or a few months of the year.

We treat this as an incredible opportunity to provide guests the best service possible in the week that they're there, so when they go back home and crave Bad Ass Coffee, they know they can order from our online store.

I think AI is really neat, and I know everyone's talking about it. I just went to a conference where it was a hot topic.

In areas like review management, AI could potentially help our franchisees get smarter about how they respond to reviews. The big question is: how do you maintain authenticity while using AI? It's about teaching AI to understand your brand and essentially become an extension of it. I find that fascinating.

As for menu trends, we're seeing a lot of cool flavors right now. We did ube back in winter, and it was fun to bring something different to the menu. I'd say menu trends are always in my line of sight since we regularly launch LTOs.

Awareness. Whether that’s a teaser a week before on social media or an email announcing the launch, building that awareness and anticipation is key.

We also partner with influencers to get the word out about our drinks. That’s been tremendous — we’re able to tap into their audiences and generate excitement beyond our own channels.

I started my career at a cloud-based supply chain solutions company in Atlanta. At that first job, I was focused on corporate event planning, both internal and external. I absolutely thrive in project management and planning. I like to say I'm type A with a little sprinkle of type B — I love being organized and making things happen.

Eventually, a friend who worked at Tropical Smoothie Cafe sparked my interest in franchise marketing, so when a role opened at Tropical for grand openings, I jumped at the opportunity. That position felt like an extension of events marketing. It involved supporting new store openings and planning everything around launch day, including promotional events and weekend deals. At the time, that was the key marketing component of new openings.

During COVID, I had the opportunity to transition from the field marketing team to the brand marketing team, where I supported local store marketing initiatives and creative development. It was a natural extension of what I had been doing and gave me broader exposure to brand strategy.

I loved my time at Tropical Smoothie Cafe. It's such a fun brand, and I can't say enough good things about it. That being said, I knew I wanted to find a new challenge with a brand I felt even more connected to, and luckily, I was eyeing a move to Denver.

That's when I came across the opportunity at Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii. I joined as a Senior Franchise Marketing Manager in February 2024 and was quickly promoted to Director of Marketing. I've been here ever since.

Learn. I love talking to people, and so I would encourage others to engage with industry peers and experts. I had a direct report who would often connect with other marketers to learn from them. I think that's something anyone can do, even if you're still in college. I had a lot of people reach out to me when they were students, wanting to hear about Tropical Smoothie Cafe and learn more about the brand.

Those informational interviews are super important because there are so many different paths you can take in franchising, even just within marketing. There's digital, field marketing, menu, brand… There are several directions you can take. So, the best advice is to stay curious and keep having those conversations.

Understanding what our guests want is the key to any successful campaign. At Tropical Smoothie Cafe, I worked on several limited-time offers (LTOs), and part of that process involved vetting different recipe ideas, often by collecting feedback from guests or people who closely resemble our target audience. We did everything with the customer in mind, which is why those campaigns performed so well.

One of the biggest successes during my time there was the launch of smoothie bowls. It just made sense for the brand — it aligned with our identity and, more importantly, it's something our guests wanted. I always think of it like this: if you’ve ever made a smoothie that’s too thick, you’ve probably made it into a smoothie bowl.

Over at Bad Ass Coffee, I've started working more closely with our loyalty program, and I've found that it plays a huge role in campaign success. It helps us understand customer behavior: when they purchase, why they purchase, and what offers resonate.

Specifically, I look at metrics like:

• New sign-ups, especially with new store openings;
• Number of visits, which indicates how many active vs. lapsed members we have;
• Reward redemptions for our “always on” offers.

Another example of a successful marketing campaign is our spring LTO — the Raspberry Reef Latte. It's a guest favorite, and we brought it back as a seasonal item. Giving something back to the guests that's not always available is one of the things that make it a hit. And that's where success lives: when you identify what your customers want and give it to them.

We’re actually running an offer right now to celebrate the end of our spring drinks, so we’ll look at the number of spring drinks purchased compared to last weekend to see if the offer incentivized people to try the drink one last time.

We market it everywhere we can in a very targeted fashion. We reach out digitally via Instagram, Google Business, loyalty emails, and in-store merchandising via digital menu boards, window clings, and A-frame stands.

We also implement loyalty initiatives. We utilize Paytronix, which I just launched at Bad Ass Coffee of Hawaii, and this mobile app provides a lot of marketing opportunities, such as the mobile carousel, which is something you can swipe through similar to an Instagram carousel.