Pub Mentors: Going for high visibility
The Great Lyde, situated on the outskirts of Yeovil, is great in many ways. It is in a good location, nestled in the heart of a large catchment area, it also occupies an elevated position making it highly visible to both the nearby community, a large new housing estate that is currently being built, and frequent passing trade.
Secondly, the outlet has a great deal of space, with two large bars as well as an extended restaurant area. This offers more than enough room to accommodate an aspiration to increase this pub’s appeal to families and to help step change its current food sales of 20% v 80% for wet.
Finally, it has Ben Scott, the manager and a great host not only to us, but to all his customers. He energises his team enormously and offers his regulars good conversation and all-round excellent general hosting.
Looking at the key aspects of the Great Lyde’s soft drinks offer there is an opportunity to work with Ben to improve the quality of serve and visibility from ‘good’ to ‘great’.
This will help Ben’s team to be better able to refresh their customers more often and ultimately refresh their sales and profits as a result. Ben’s primary challenge is how he communicates and serves his soft drinks range to his customers.
ACTION 1: ENSURING QUALITY OF SERVE
When people are enjoying soft drinks in a pub it is important they receive a better serve than they could get at home
We should never forget that 63% of consumers think soft drinks represent poor value for money. But we must remind ourselves that value for money is not simply how much something costs. The price is the money the customers pay, but value is everything that the pub gives them back in return.
Quality glassware is key. More and more pubs are serving beer in branded glasses, as it adds to the quality perception. Soft drinks should be no different, as appealing glassware adds to the quality experience and is something many consumers cannot deliver at home.
Ben currently serves his cola in a pint or a half-pint glass. Only when he serves a Coca-Cola glass icon bottle does he use a branded glass. Ben should use branded glassware across his entire branded soft drinks range, as it sends a quality and refreshment message to other customers in the pub and contributes to the value-for-money message.
By using branded glassware that dispenses a larger serving size than the half-pint and pint measure, Ben has an opportunity to increase his cash margin on every serve while still delivering more value to his customers.
Making the most of glassware
Ben has agreed to use 16oz and 22oz branded glassware as his standard regular and large serving sizes. He will also re-align his retail prices to ensure he is still offering value to his customers but driving his own profitability forward.
ACTION 2: CHILLED VISIBILITY
Soft drinks account for almost 40% of an average pub’s packaged sales turnover and should ideally be allocated an equal share of chilled space. In the Great Lyde chilled space is quite scarce and, as a result, many of Ben’s soft drinks are ambient. Chilled availability is really key so Ben can offer ice-cold refreshment and deliver customer satisfaction.
Increasing chilled space for softs
Ben has only one back-of-bar fridge. Most of his back-bar space is given to glassware, which does not visually generate sales. We agreed to support Ben with an extra back-bar chiller so he can increase not only his chilled space for soft drinks, but also their visibility to the consumer.
ACTION 3: VISIBILITY BEHIND THE BAR
The pub is one of the few retail environments where consumers often have to guess what is on
offer — 40% of consumers make their soft drinks choice inside the pub and great visibility raises this to over 60%. The Great Lyde has a great chance to make more of the ‘retail’ space behind and above the bar to maximise sales of all categories.
Refreshing space behind the bar
Ben, together with Ali Carter, our pub mentor, and Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), agreed to refresh and re-merchandise the area behind the bar to improve the visibility and stimulate purchase across key categories.
ACTION 4: VISIBILITY ON MENU
Ben is keen to appeal to local families to drive his lunchtime food trade. He currently has a traditional lunchtime menu printed on A4, which is then laminated. However, there are no soft drinks listed on his menu.
With soft drinks having the highest penetration of any category with food in the pub trade, at 43%, it is vital to increase visibility of soft-drinks. In tests across 250 pubs last year we saw a soft-drinks category uplift of between 5% and 9% simply by including them on the menu.
Producing more attractive menus
Ben agreed to use CCE’s menu-maker tool to create better-looking menus, including listing the range of soft drinks on offer.
- Pub Mentors is run in partnership with Coca Cola Enterprises Ltd Open More Business
