Beautiful Beer is taking a different approach to previous campaigns. And it just might be the right one, writes Adam Withrington.
Picture the scene: "Masters of Beer" - the highest-ranking beer writers in the land - waxing lyrical on beer in the weekend supplements of every national newspaper; the latest Corrie starlet talking about her favourite cask ales in a headline interview with Marie Claire magazine; Vogue running a weekly column on "Great beers of the world"; Food and Drink on the BBC developing a weekly beer feature, with experts giving advice on beer and food matching…
This may all sound a tad unrealistic. The eagle-eyed among you may even think I have simply exchanged the word "wine" for "beer" or "cask ales" in the paragraph above in a bid to be clever. However, if the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) has its way, this could be the media landscape in three years time, with beer and not wine the focus of consumer journalists.
Through its new Beautiful Beer campaign, it is the BBPA's mission to revolutionise the way people think about beer.
At the campaign launch, Coors Brewers chief Peter Kendall said: "Beer has been associated with a certain lifestyle and we want to change that. We will be rolling out a series of activities designed to drive up the standards of beer quality in pubs and to educate people about it."
Ros Shiel, PR manager for the campaign, says there is a three-year plan, but for the first year there is one major goal. "The plan is to target the consumer press and the key message is beer and food; it's the big story to get through to consumers - especially women," she says. "There is a real hunger out there for information on food, through TV programmes and magazines. What we have now is a much simpler approach to food, looking at the basic ingredients and freshness. And this is good news for beer."
As a result Beautiful Beer has organised its first big consumer press event - a beer and food dinner presided over by chef Ed Baines. Ros has invited writers from the weekend supplements of the main national newspapers in the hope of raising the profile of the campaign.
The number one consumer group on the BBPA's hit list is women. So invitations have also been sent out to journalists on women's magazines like Marie Claire. "The response from the women's magazines has been pretty positive," Ros confirms. "Beer is not something women's magazines have ever really written about but when we offer them a connection with food they are keen to get involved because women are hugely interested in food."
However, women have been targeted for some time by enlightened souls who believe the fairer sex are the missing link in beer's progression. Four years ago Mike Benner, now chief executive of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), spoke of his frustration at the way brewers ignored women in their marketing.
As a result CAMRA launched its "Ask if it's Cask" campaign. But well-intentioned though it was, it does not seem to have made an impact on the female market. Why does the BBPA think that this time will be different? "The main advantage we have is the research that was done before we launched the project," says Christine Milburn, communications manager at the BBPA.
Campaign credibility
To help give the campaign real credibility the BBPA carried out research using fellow trade associations Cask Marque and the BII to show the impact cellar training could have on beer quality.
Cask Marque carried out quality audits on 200 pubs following which licensees were trained, and the pubs re-evaluated to see whether it improved beer quality.
"The audits showed that those licensees who did have training enjoyed an immediate three per cent rise in beer sales," says Christine. "Which other campaign has offered that kind of research or incentive?"
One of the campaign's main targets is to roll out this pilot scheme across the country. "We're now discussing with brewers and pubcos how they want it to work," says Ros. "We have to find a way of delivering the pilot in a flexible way. Not everyone can come to training days so we are discussing ways of getting around that."
It seems that the time is now right for an assault on the nation's consciousness by beer. Last month the BBPA said that women would be more interested in beer if it was served in 1/3 pint glasses. It received a great deal of national press coverage and The Times even devoted its letters page to the subject. While some of the coverage was critical, Christine believes the right chord was struck. "Not everyone agreed that it was the way forward, but at least it got people talking about beer," she says.
Despite confirming that £300,000 has been committed for each of the next three years, Ros says plans for years two and three have not been drawn up. The important thing, she says, is to deliver on year one's target of spreading the message of beer and food.
"We do not have a confusing message. It is about keeping things simple. We have to build things up slowly," she argues.
There are doubters out there who feel that the £300,000 a year investment from BBPA members is a pitiful amount, given the huge sums brewers spend on marketing individual lager brands.
But the crucial point is that the investment has been committed from a group that represents interested parties from across the industry. And perhaps that is what has been missing from previous generic campaigns. Ros hopes that after three years the amount will rise, and if the campaign is successful then it surely will.
"The whole point is that we have been able to get all relevant parties under one roof to talk about beer and share ideas," she says. "Coors has said it will replace its Beer Naturally logo with our Beautiful Beer logo, the Beer Academy now uses our logo on all its letterheads and we presented a talk on Beautiful Beer to the recent Society of Independent Brewers conference."
Who knows - in a couple of years' time we all may be raising a glass of beer thanks to this campaign.