This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
News
Broken Promises
d=”standfirst”>Guest Monologue from Graham Abbott, Director, Box Marketing
There is a dichotomy in the on-trade which is a problem for drinks manufacturers, pubs, clubs, bars and consumers. The manufacturers and outlets are not delivering brand promises so consumers are left disappointed and are spending their money elsewhere.
The problem arises because drinks brands are not getting through to the on-trade or being presented to consumers in the right way. Take the example of the Brazilian Cachaca brand featured recently on Channel 4. A lot of noise was created around the launch by Saatchi. Along with the television coverage the product was introduced into bars populated by young “opinion formers”. Unfortunately, it has remained stuck in a few upmarket bars. Consumers across the nation may want to try it but they will have to hunt for it in the West End.
The situation stems from the traditional management demarcation between sales and marketing. The two rarely meet. In fact, they often work to completely different agendas.
Marketers make brand promises to consumers, and sales divisions often struggle to gain distribution into outlets. For many mainstream brands the system works well. For niche beers, soft drinks and upmarket wines and spirits the situation is often difficult to overcome. Yet it is the alternative products that will revive the flagging sales of many on-trade outlets.
Currently, most pubs and bars marginalise customers because they do not stock broad enough ranges of drinks and, consequently, consumers pursue other leisure options. What’s more, consumers are becoming increasingly selective and promiscuous in how they spend their money as new alternatives become available. This may well be compounded if Tony Blair gets his way and a new cafe? culture is created by the 50,000 quick-service food outlets that apply for licences. It may not be long before pubs and bars have to compete with Costa Coffee and Burger King.
The on-trade, and pubs in particular, have to respond. The young male culture which dominates the pub “brand” has reached saturation point and no amount of big-screen sport is going to increase sales.
Catering for young males has excluded other markets. There are now more than 20 million consumers aged 50 or more and the post-babyboomers will shortly add to the numbers. They are by far the richest consumer group but they are also the most selective. The vast majority, particularly wealthier groups, reject pubs as a leisure option.
Equally, women constitute a major market that has not been catered for by pubs. If we did not know better it would be easy to assume that some pub managements had a strategic policy of alienating female consumers.
What this means is that inclusivity has to be the way forward and this can be achieved only by changing pub culture. They must appeal to everyone without being sterile. We all know one or two pubs or bars and a large number of hotels and shopping outlets that do this. Pubs can become all things to all men, and women.
Part of the process of keeping the leisure pound in the on-trade must be by providing better and different consumer experiences, and manufactures have their part to play. Rather than concentrating on making brand promises, more time and money must be invested in keeping promises at the point of sale. Ensuring bars carry stock which is served in the right way will make a major impact. Those that have distribution problems can simply sell direct.
The result would be an uptake of new and different drinks. It fulfils the need for alternative consumer experiences and keeps them in the on-trade rather than spending their money elsewhere.
Recent editions of the drinks businesshave highlighted this. The growth in sales of London Pride is a direct result of increased distribution, and as Clare Young of Vintellect says, if you provide women with good wine you win loyalty, and male customers follow closely behind.
Such changes will also have other benefits. Pubs will become better places to work in and staff productivity, absenteeism, time-keeping, motivation and recruitment will improve. This in turn will reflect back to consumers.
There is no secret to turning around the fortunes of pubs and increasing sales in the on-trade. As consumers we know what we want and what works for us. And when we experience it we become loyal customers and employ the most powerful marketing communication technique there is – we make recommendations to others.
If more effort is made to marry marketing with sales, and if pub managements pursue policies of consumer inclusivity, then the on-trade can thrive. The alternative is to sit back and watch consumers spend their money elsewhere.