One for the ladies

Women drinkers are becoming an increasing force in the pub industry. Ben McFarland investigates.

The clichéd image of a man ordering himself a pint of ale and a glass of white wine for his good lady wife is a stereotype that has not rung true for a number of years now.

Greater financial independence, generated by single incomes averaging £26,000 per annum, is enabling women to abandon the traditional routes of marriage and motherhood and go down the pub!

The runaway success of the premium packaged spirit (PPS) category can largely be attributed to the female market - 61.6 per cent of PPS drinkers are females - and it would not be a wild over-exaggeration to suggest that women have also been the primary driving force behind the substantial growth of wine within the on-trade. In fact, of all the sectors in growth, the vast majority appeal in some way to the female market.

It is no coincidence either that the rise of these sectors has coincided with a revolution in pub design, which has transformed the public perception of the licensed trade.

The dim, dingy smoke-infested pubs of yesteryear with their dark wood and even darker windows, have given way to pubs that are significantly more conducive to female frequentation. With the increasing popularity of fruit juice outlets, coffee shops and style bars, pubs have finally realised that they can ill afford to alienate the female consumer and have subsequently made themselves lighter, more amenable, well-ventilated and considerably more welcoming to women.

What's more, female drinking habits are no longer confined to the occasional white wine spritzer or gin and tonic. In fact, research has shown that women are far more experimental and are significantly more likely to switch between brands and give new products a go.

Following extensive female consumer research, Guinness UDV turned up the heat on rival Bacardi-Martini in the battle for the lucrative female PPS market with the launch of Archers Aqua - a ready-to-drink offshoot from its leading schnapps brand.

The research identified that the adult female drinks market was not driven by the same factors as its male counterpart.

Beverley Brozsely, Guinness UDV's UK innovations director, said: "Although men claim they are not brand conscious, they're just as worried about their image as women." Beverley added that while men are reluctant to veer away from the brands they know, women are always looking for something new and looking for reinvention.

"The PPS category has experienced fantastic growth and is over 60 per cent female. Our consumer research identified the opportunity for a stylish female PPS to complement the more masculine Smirnoff Ice which has a 50/50 male, female usership," said Beverley.

Guinness UDV interviewed 1,000 18 to 24-year-old women during a "girls night out" and from the feedback gained, pinpointed a number of trends.

One of the key revelations was that the female profile has moved away from the ladette phase of the mid-1990s and is now someone who is "a 21st century version of feminine - intelligent, open, happy in the company of men, enjoys conversations with the girls, but with no frills," or so the marketing mumbo-jumbo claims.

Towards the end of last year, Guinness UDV repositioned its Bailey's brand sharply at the female market and in conjunction with the brand's sponsorship of Sex and the City series - Channel 4's hit show about four Manhattan career women who work hard and, ahem, play hard - conducted an investigation into the young female lifestyle.

From the findings evolved a "new breed of woman" known as SASSY. Aged between 25 and 35, she is single, affluent, successful, sensual and young and, according to the study, spends her money primarily on herself and her social life and includes the likes of Stella McCartney, Gail Porter, Tamsin Outhwaite and Victoria Hervey as role models.

While feminine brands such as Archers and Bailey's have predictably benefited from the rise in female pub-goers, the traditionally male-oriented drinks companies and brewers have been relatively inactive in their attempts to woo the female pound. Female beer-drinking is now worth more than £70m annually, increasing numbers of women are both joining CAMRA and attending CAMRA beer festivals and the number of female beer drinkers has more than doubled in the last five years.

However, women still represent a mere 21 per cent of beer drinkers. So, while the two major players, John Smith's and Tetley's, unashamedly and exclusively market their brands at the male consumer, is there not room for a beer that only targets the SASSY woman?

No, if past attempts are anything to go by! Just ask Allied. Fifteen years ago, it unsuccessfully launched a lager aimed predominantly at women called Bleu de Brasserie while Lacons had a similar uninspired response to its lager and lime concept released in the late 1980s.

With the benefit of hindsight, these deliberate and transparent attempts at recruiting female drinkers seem extremely naive and more than a decade on, brewers are adopting a much more subtle approach.

Fuller's brands manager David Spencer admitted that the beer industry hasn't done nearly as much as it could have done in its attempts to attract women.

"Women don't want to be either patronised or made to feel excluded. Brands need to reach out and not be clumsy in their attempts to encourage women to drink beer," said Mr Spencer. "I'm not convinced that women want to drink a product that's aimed directly at them, nor am I convinced that you need to divide people into gender in order to market a product successfully. Whether male or female, the consumer wants credible brands and refreshing, tasty beers."

Fuller's recently launched a new range of glassware for its Organic Honey Dew brand in an attempt to overcome the stigma surrounding women drinking out of traditional pint glasses. "We introduced slim, elegant pils-style glasses that look and feel better and appeal to women a lot more than the large chunky pint glass or jug."

When challenged about Fuller's male-dominated London Pride advertisements, he added: "We have marketing which is geared towards men because that's where the majority of the sales are likely to come from. But I don't accept the adverts exclude women - the adverts are meant to convey the interplay and social relationships between a group of friends in the pub. It could equally apply to a mixed group or female group."

Another brand to adopt a "unisex" approach to its advertising is Boddington's, which rose to fame a few years ago on the back of its "Cream of Manchester" campaign starring the ladette Melanie Sykes and succeeded by Graham the cow and his girlfriend Claudia.

Kathryn McNamara, marketing manager at Boddington's, said: "The large majority of our drinkers are male but in the adverts we tried to get an equal balance and equal interplay between the two sexes."

Kathryn added that the brand's genderless status made it accessible for both men and women. "The male drinker no longer goes off drinking with his male mates wearing a cloth cap to get away from the girls nor do women need to have their drink amended for their delicate female psyches."