Making it in the UK Beer Market
21st March 2006
The Albert Arms, Kingston
George’s talk focused primarily on the UK "off trade" where Young’s is a very much a "niche" operator, supplying a range of bottled cask ales into this specialist sub segment of the bottled premium beer market. Brands include the flagship brand, Special London Ale, as well as St. George’s Ale, Waggle Dance, Old Nick, Ram Rod and the latest addition to the range Kew Brew.
Although this "niche" market is currently growing, it is a crowded market, increasingly occupied by foreign as well as UK brands. It is also becoming an increasingly seasonal market with specialist brand promotions taking place around Christmas, bonfire night, St George's day and more recently, new ranges of bottled summer drinking ale.
Characteristics of niche markets include low volumes, high prices and high margins. In this particular market, the fact that duty accounts for 40-50% of the retail price also has the effect of leveling the playing field, making it difficult to "stand out."
George explained some of the marketing issues which the company has been facing over recent years to help the Young’s "niche" brands stand out from the crowd. A couple of years ago, they set themselves the task of having two brands in the top 15, and to deliver a pipeline of products to maintain a range of secondary brands in the category. Marketing solutions included developing a portfolio strategy with this aim in mind, and this included a combination of rebranding, repackaging and repositioning some the brands. Although there had been some success, George admitted there was more to do.
This was a most informative presentation, and the audience was fully engaged in the topic, with a most lively question and answer session taking place both during and after George’s talk. In fact there were plenty of suggestions for possible ways of improving the Young’s product marketing!
The audience’s engagement with the topic was undoubtedly assisted by the fact that George had brought quite a few bottles of the various beers along to illustrate his talk. Some of these were raffled to the audience at the end, using our regular "business card" raffle. Once the two lucky winners had chosen their beer cases, the rest of us were allowed to select a few bottles, ensuring that we all went home very happy indeed!
By Rosemary Morgan March 2006
Analysis of Feedback Forms from this event
12 forms were received - a 60% response rate from those attending
Every respondent was positive about the welcome they received , their interest in the event and their evaluation of the event as a whole.
11 of the 12 were positive about the method and style of the speaker , George Wright, with 5 of these moved to comment : 'very full and interesting presentation', 'really interesting presentation - very enjoyable', 'Great will come again', 'EXCELLENT' (appeared twice)
Over 60% of respondents were positive about other aspects of the event administration, relevance to their needs, the room facilities and the refreshments, the latter attracting the one only negative comment One other comment related to problems with car parking they obviously failed to recognise an initiative test.
Other post event comments included many expressions of gratitude for the samples handed out by George and Dan as well as their time and effort in organising the evening and laying out the function room well done!
By Tony Bennett West Surrey team, 24th March 2006