Stocking up for Christmas: Soft drinks set to join the mix

The two soft drinks giants, Britvic and Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), are singing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to their advice to licensees for Christmas.

Andy Slee, trading director at CCE says: "For us, focus at Christmas is split two ways - first towards mixing, for the alcohol occasion, and second, towards the designated driver.

"As regards the first point it is important for us to link drinking at Christmas with mixers and, in our case, that means with Schweppes mixers. The quality of mixed drinks is absolutely crucial to this time of year. A very high proportion of our mixer business is done in the six weeks leading up to Christmas."

Andrew Marsden, category director at Britvic, agrees about the sheer size of the opportunity. "The thing people need to remember is that December is the highest soft drink month (in terms of sales) in the on-trade. Not only that, but the soft drinks category is also growing at the same time - in the past year it has grown eight per cent in value and five per cent in volume."

Both also believe it is crucial for licensees to realise the importance of keeping designated drivers happy; the longer they stay in the pub, the more, in turn, their group of friends will.

"We certainly support the pub groups who have got behind the "I'll be DES" campaign," says Andy. "Many of them offer free soft drinks for designated drivers who bring three friends to the pub. And it would be great to see freehouses offering this as a point of difference."

However, more interestingly Andrew sees this Christmas as the most crucial of recent years. Given the recent decision to introduce the smoking ban next year, he sees the festive period as a big dry run for pubs leading up to this moment.

"This Christmas will be the biggest trial opportunity in history. People will want to know they can go to the pub with their whole family and enjoy the experience. It is the big opportunity to try and attract new and lapsed customers back into the pub. And therefore people are going to want to feel comfortable in a pub environment," he says.

So he argues now, more than ever, licensees have to get their soft drinks offer right. Because if these non-regular pub customers have a bad experience in your pub over Christmas they may not be interested in coming back once the smoking ban is enforced.

"You have simply got to get the serve and pricing right. Don't treat customers as second class citizens. Have table service and try and sell them two soft drinks as opposed to one," says Andrew.

"People break their normal habits over Christmas. There will be a lot of short-term social occasions when people can't drink; they move quickly from one family environment to another. A lot of travelling is involved and no drinking."