Wadworth rolls out its segmentation project to tenanted estate

In 2013 the Wiltshire-based brewer and pub operator launched a project to establish five types of pubs which it expected its estate to fit in to. These were Great Pub Great Food, High Street, Beer House, Community Local and Family Pub Dining. The scheme has been trialled across the 43-strong managed estate with positive results. Segments for the entire estate have now been established and over the next five years they will be converted.

In order to do this the 223-strong operator has launched what it calls its Skin Deep project, which will see the company refurbish the pubs to reflect the new direction.

In the tenanted estate the refurbishment will be done in collaboration with tenants, with Wadworth responsible for the exterior facelift. Sullivan said a typical cost of refurbishment in the managed estate had been c£120,000 with the majority of that spent on the interior.

'Individuality is key'​

Emma Cottam, trade marketing manager, told M&C Report​ the segmentation project was not designed to impose a rigid template on tenants.

She said: “The individuality of the pub is absolutely key and that comes from tenants or managers. We don’t want to stifle that. What this is about is giving them guidance on what to put on their blackboards, how to sell their offer. We can tell them the key words for their segment and their geography.”

“It’s human search engine optimisation,” Sullivan added.

Implementation​

On the process of working with tenants to implement the segmentation programme, Sullivan said: “We have done the desktop exercise which is going through the tenancies and assigning segments to them. The first stage is the easy pickings where it’s simply a case of tidying up pubs where we agree they are in the right segment. Those are the priority of Skin Deep because they are running correctly but perhaps not communicating that to the customers as effectively as they could be.

“The second is about having a proper interventionist conversation with those people who need to change segments. In most cases it will be a situation where it is simply not working and we have a solution to that. It’s a case of them working with us or we change segment when the tenancy changes.

“This is really the first stage to our requirement to resolve the impending MRO process, which is that at some stage everyone is going to want a freehouse. Not because they want a freehouse but because they think they can have one. We have got to offer more and if we can show a proven formula for success in a certain area then that takes a lot of the risk away from running a successful pub and stacks up very competitively against the prospect of having to do everything yourself in a freehouse.”