Ep 28: Andrew Rebhun, Vice President Digital Officer for El Pollo Loco

Feb 3

Listening to your peers and understanding your business model from the ground-up is a key path to marketing success. This idea is shared by today’s guest, Andrew Rebhun, as we unpack his career and latest role as the Vice President Digital Officer for El Pollo Loco. Having lived in six cities over 10 years, we open our conversation with Andrew by exploring his impressive career trajectory. After chatting about his work for Ford, we talk about his transition into the QSR industry and how he accelerated McDonald’s digital expansion. Having laid the foundations for his current job at El Pollo Loco, we then dive into the healthy state of their marketing department. Andrew opens up about their challenges, how they drive customer engagement, and what they’re doing to get customers to use their app over third-party services. Considering their success over the pandemic, we look at how El Pollo Loco adapted to the crisis. Later, we touch on how they manage their SEO and social media strategies, their franchise footprint, and their marketing department’s relationship with franchisees. He shares his top marketing advice with listeners and we wrap up the discussion by asking Andrew for his take on brand loyalty, influencer campaigns, TikTok, and Facebook. Tune to hear Andrew’s insights into the world of multi-location marketing.

Key Points From This Episode:

Introducing today’s guest, Andrew Rebhub of El Pollo Loco.
Andrew talks about his experience living in six cities within 10 years.
Why on-the-ground experience creates strong business foundations.
From Mustangs to McNuggets, hear about Andrew’s transition into QSR.
Andrew reflects why working with franchisees is so humbling.
Exploring Andrew’s role in growing the McDonald’s app.
What led Andrew to join El Pollo Loco.
Insights into El Pollo Loco’s marketing department and strategy.
Specifics on how El Pollo Loco engages with their customers.
How El Pollo Loco is converting third-party orders to ordering in their app.
What Andrew’s department did to pivot during the pandemic.
The factors that lead to El Pollo Loco’s current success.
How El Pollo Loco approaches media platforms and buying.
Andrew discusses the footprint and relationship interplay between their franchisees and head office.
Hear Andrew’s advice for aspiring marketing professionals.
Why listening and mentorship can be so valuable to your career.
Andrew answers our final lightning round questions.

Tweetables:

“You have a much better appreciation for a business when you experience it on the ground level. That knowledge is key to creating successful strategies and tactics you come up with at the home office.” — Andrew Rebhun [0:06:03]

“It's humbling to work with different franchisees. Because it's the franchisees that have to come together and buy into the plan. None of us is as good as all of us.” — Andrew Rebhun [0:08:29]

“We're up 3X what we were doing before the pandemic because we focused on converting customers from both an e-commerce and a delivery standpoint.” — Andrew Rebhun [0:27:27]

“I have this three-question strategy when putting together a marketing campaign — is it disruptive? Is it profitable? And number three, is it executable?” — Andrew Rebhun [0:36:10]