'Outdated' GBBF damages brewing, says marketing expert

A marketing expert has launched a scathing attack against the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF), claiming that it is damaging the brewing industry. Jeremy Baker, senior lecturer in marketing at London Metropolitan University, lays the blame not just with the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) but at the feet of the whole brewing industry (click here​ for the full article).

He has accused brewers of "sheer laziness" by failing to come up with alternative ways of marketing beer and says the brewing industry is letting itself down by allowing the GBBF to be the face of the industry.

He said: "CAMRA is hurting the beer industry with its outdated appeal. The GBBF needs to be replaced by an upmarket, modern, young, witty, female-friendly beer event.

"Big brewers are just too lazy to create anything different. It may seem cunning to let CAMRA's free volunteers do beer publicity for nothing. But this is very expensive in terms of its impact upon the industry's long-term image."

However, CAMRA has rebuffed these criticisms claiming that the appeal of the event has widened in recent years, with a quarter of people attending now being women and the average age of visitors now 35.

Mike Benner, head of campaigns and communications for CAMRA, said: "If we had the luxury of a bigger budget we would certainly look at putting out a more targeted campaign.

"I would agree, however, that beer is marketed too comfortably at core markets.

"If you look at the festival five years ago, the typical person who went was a 40-year-old male. Now there are more women than ever before."

Scott Waddington, chief executive of brewer SA Brain & Co, said: "The industry works very hard in the marketing of beer. We are a member of the Independent Family Brewers of Britain and look at what it is doing with Cask Beer Week.

"There are 40 family brewers involved so I don't think that the industry is lazy. I think that the GBBF is a great institution but it's important to recognise that it is only a few days out of the 365 in the year, when there are many other initiatives taking place."

Mark Hastings, spokesman for the British Beer & Pub Association, said: "Brewers and pubcos have launched various campaigns to get 'beer virgins' to try the product."

CAMRA has recently launched a campaign to get more women into real ale and has challenged the brewing industry to market and brew beers specifically for women.

But beer industry heralds festival a success as visitor numbers hit 43,400​

Despite Mr Baker's assertions, the GBBF 2003 appears to have been a success this year. The preliminary estimate for the number of visitors is 43,400 and opinions from brewers are favourable.

• Eric Wilkinson: finance department at Cains brewery​

"Everything went very well. The temperature was good and the air-conditioning helped no end.

"We had a very wide spectrum of customers and I would say it was such a wide range of people that the event must have been well organised and advertised. There were people we knew from last year and first timers who knew nothing about beer, people from London and customers from Korea."

Jake Douglas: manager of Oakham ales​

"The quality of beer being sold all round the event was excellent. A lot people who were there were young. I can't say that there was any single age group that I served more beer to. People came to us because they took beer seriously and others came because they were on a night out and this allowed us to introduce new beers to them. The only criticism I would have is that there could be more room for micro-brewers like us."

Georgina Wald: PR manager of Fuller's Brewery​

"The event seemed to go very well. All our beer went and the air-conditioning had a major effect on the event. In past years it has been sweltering but this time around it was quite pleasant. The GBBF continues to be an important event for Fuller's."

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