The man with the plan

If John Roscoe is nervous about being less than a week away from the biggest day in his professional year, he shows no sign of it. In fact, he seems to be thriving on that fact.

After all, if you were Guinness brand director you would be just a mite apprehensive about the approach of St Patrick's Day. The brand's parent company Diageo has managed to make it the single biggest trading day outside of the Christmas period. Quite something to live up to, but John is unfazed.

"Not long ago St Patrick's Day wasn't that widely celebrated. It is Guinness and pubs that have changed this. So we try and beat it each year and that is the key," he says.

"We take inspiration from other brands and their approach to campaigns - like Nike and what they did with Run London. As a result we have launched "The Big Cheers". It is about engaging the huge Guinness community out there."

A website has been set up which has a pub locator in it which shows the best St Pat's parties, as well as a Guinness quiz where consumers can take on anyone who logs onto the site, and a facility allowing drinkers to upload pictures of the day itself.

The challenge

John is six months into his time at Diageo, and clearly enjoying himself.

Well you would, after several years working at Proctor & Gamble selling washing powder. Quite reasonably, he says checking pricing and marketing materials in supermarket aisles loses something when put next to the task of going into great pubs and tasting the product.

So you can understand why he took the challenge on.

But surely there would be just a hint of trepidation at such a task? It is a huge job, with great profile, but with that comes the fear that, after years of success, you will be the person to drop the Black Stuff into the brown stuff.

As things stand he doesn't have too much to fear - despite some negative headlines late last year in the national press. Just under a month ago, at Diageo's results briefing Guinness, was revealed to be the company's star performer.

The company has built market share in 13 consecutive months; it is now the number three beer in the on-trade and the number two in London. And while John is concerned by the general malaise that is affecting the UK beer market he admits that Guinness does not appear to be as affected by it as lager.

Robust in the on-trade

"The on-trade is a concern because we are a big on-trade brand," he comments.

"But it looks like Guinness is affected less than other beer brands. If we get everything right (such as advertising and quality) then we do get people into pubs to drink."

Perhaps the brand continues to succeed because it is so heavily embedded in the on-trade. While many lager brands are discounting in the supermarkets, Guinness is all about the pub - as John puts it: "Guinness needs pubs and pubs need Guinness."

And so how does John see the next two to three years for the brand?

"We are always thinking about where we want to be in three to four years time - internally we call it 'Diageo 2011'," he says. "We aim to be a considerably bigger brand than we are today. We want consecutive years of growth.

"[Chief executive] Paul Walsh says we are a total beverage business and the 2011 vision is to be winning in beer. There are companies who would kill to have Guinness in their portfolio."