Soft drinks profits - it's child's play
Catering for kids by stocking the right soft drinks will make your pub a winner
Leading Soft Drinks company, Britvic Soft Drinks, offers a range of drinks that not only appeal to kids but that parents feel happy with too. Through the Right Choice soft drinks management programme, Britvic offers licensees simple advice on how to maximise their soft drinks sales by incorporating children's drinks into the family equation. Britvic has identified the different "occasions" when kids will visit a pub:
Family friendlyWhen families visit, usually at weekend lunchtimes. They will stay for about an hour and a half and have a couple of drinks each. A key tactic for this occasion is to flag up special deals on blackboards and to promote the standard 10oz draught Pepsi size as a kid's serve.
Child indulgentWhen families set out for a specific outlet because of the kids' facilities. Licensees can capitalise on this occasion by offering loyalty schemes and special kids branded menus.
Leading kids brands
Fruit ShootFruit Shoot from Robinsons is now worth £49m and is benefiting this year from a £6m support campaign including original TV ads continuing the "New Thinking" theme and a six-month sponsorship of one of Cartoon Network's most popular programmes, Beyblade. Get Active is the first ever on-pack promotion for Fruit Shoot offering youngsters the opportunity to win a place at the Fruit Shoot Sports Camp next spring. The instant win promotion will soon give way to a second on-pack promotion Back to School to be launched in August.
Freekee SodaFreekee Soda (Freekee Soda is a Trade Mark of Britvic Soft Drinks) was supported with a £6.25m launch earlier this year and commenced with TV advertising in April.Freekee Soda mixes the fizz with the smooth to create a totally new sub-category "texture-based-fizz", and is driving sales with press advertising and a partnership with youth channel Nickelodeon. This summer will see a sampling campaign to reach over 500,000 kids supported by the fully interactive website www.freekeesoda.com.
Case study: Clive Mansell, The Ship Inn, Owslebury, Hampshire"People who eat here generally like a soft drink before and with their meal to help quench a thirst", says Clive Mansell, licensee of The Ship Inn in Hampshire. "We place soft drinks around the bar for people to see when they enter and that is vitally important to maximise sales"."We cater for kids as we are very much a family pub. Fruit Shoot is the best thing since sliced bread. Kids can run round the garden or have a game of football, come back to their bottle of Fruit Shoot and seal it when they are finished. It's clean, there are no spillages and it looks cool"."Freekee Soda also performs extremely well. We give it a prominent position on our inside bar and at the bar in the garden, which is in full use at this time of year for BBQ's and kids' parties. Our garden is huge and is perfect as an outdoor family dining area"."We stock Fruit Shoot and Freekee Soda as we invest heavily in the family occasion by providing a play area, bouncy castle and skittle alley, which we lay on in the warmer months. Fruit Shoot and Freekee Soda are real favourites here and are always asked for by name as a result."
For more information on the Right Choice programme for publicans, call Britvic customer services on 0845 755 0345
