Freehouse survey

Related tags Bacardi breezer Alcopop

When it comes to selecting which brands a pub stocks, the owners are overwhelmingly in control (79%) with just 8% of licensees delegating it to their...

When it comes to selecting which brands a pub stocks, the owners are overwhelmingly in control (79%) with just 8% of licensees delegating it to their bar managers. A small clutch of pubs also take a group decision that involves all the staff employed at an outlet.

Surprisingly for brand owners, the size of a product's marketing spend is the least compelling reason to list a brand, with 98% saying this does not influence their decision. This is followed closely by whether a brand is currently being advertised, which influences just 5% of respondents. And a whopping 71% of licensees say there is no uplift in sales when a brand appears on TV. Instead, it's customer demand (91%), margins (21%) and retail price (19%) that carry the most weight when chosing brands.

Looking at the individual categories there are some clear winners among freetrade customers. In premium lager, Stella Artois has a signficant lead over its closest rival, Kronenbourg, although when it comes to growth, Carlsberg is just slightly ahead, albeit from a lower base.

Although Carling takes the prize for best-selling standard lager, it is growing at a slightly slower rate than Foster's, currently the second-most-popular standard lager. Further down the list, Tennants is making some progress, featuring in both the list of top-selling brands as well as securing a spot in the list of fastest-growing lines.

In the bottled arena, things are more clear cut, with Budweiser selling the most and also increasing sales ahead of other brands. On the emerging brands side, it's only Corona and Budvar that get a mention in the list of top-selling brands in third and fourth space respectively, while Corona is also the third-fastest-growing bottled beer brand.

In spirits and RTDs the figures mirror the national pattern of sales, with Smirnoff Ice and Smirnoff on top in both categories.

However, there is a wide gulf between WKD the second-biggest-selling RTD line and Bacardi Breezer. And more worrying for the drinks giant, across all categories, Bacardi Breezer received the most votes for the brand licensees are planning to axe, followed jointly by soft-drinks-newcomer Schwepps Deuce, stalwart Guinness and Holsten Pils, which is losing favour with some despite being the fifth-top-selling bottled beer.

There's a clear message to some of the older-style spirits rum and pastis with two rum brands, Lamb's and Captain Morgan being rated as two of the slowest-selling lines. For Pernod Ricard there's also a warning message about its Pernod spirit, sitting in second place behind Lamb's.

In terms of profit margins, 44% of freetraders see soft drinks as their biggest cash cow, with Britvic's J20 beating Coca-Cola as the best-selling brand. Soft drinks are followed by spirits (20%), standard draught lager (13%) and wine (5%).

In the main, freehouses seem content with the products available to them, with 89% saying there are no other brands they would like to stock and 75% reporting that they don't plan to delist anything from their current range.

If licensees are planning to drop any brands, the fact that they are no longer popular with customers is the buiggest reason (16% of answers).

But it's worth noting that freehouses seem fairly apathetic topwards the new lines that have been launched in the past year. Only J2O's new Apple & Raspberry variant, the additional flavours launched for Bacardi Breezers, Magners cider and Schweppes Deuce were singled out, although collectively they only amassed 5% of the votes, with the majority of licensees (78%) saying that no launches had particularly impressed them.

When it comes to the worst launch, licensees were slighlty more opinionated. Schweppes Deuce took the largest share of the votes (10%) with Bacardi Breezer's new flavours following on 3%.

Top 5 RTDs

1Smirnoff Ice

2 WKD

3Bacardi Breezer

4 Reef

5Red Square

Top 5 Spirits

1Smirnoff

2 Gordon's

3Bell's

4 Bacardi Carta Blanca

5The Famous Grouse