A vast display of dominoes in a stereotypical South American village, flocks of birds and the enigmatic message 'Belong'. We all know the high-profile ad campaigns created by the likes of Guinness and Carling.
Every licensee will also be aware of the promotional material these same names in drinks send round to accompany their above-the-line campaigns, the point-of-sale (PoS) kits that more often than not are thrown in the bin in the knowledge that using them to deck out your pub would waste valuable time.
Fewer know how to truly make the most of this brand-led activity. How do you eke out the potential sales of a beer or spirit that, due to a bombardment of primetime adverts, may literally be flavour of the month? How do you promote a brand in your pub to capitalise on its high profile?
Industry experts supplied us with the following tips: 1 Back the right brand
Be absolutely sure the brand will sell. David Bremner, business development director for marketing consultancy MDA, says a good example is Guinness Extra Cold, a brand which "pubs immediately needed to stock because drinkers were demanding it".
He says that brand extensions to already-big drinks names - for example, new variants of WKD - are generally most reliable as they have already proven to sell.
Geoff Brown, Punch Taverns' marketing director, is responsible for deciding which brands to back when drinks companies approach with product launches or proposals for below-the-line marketing campaigns. He says there are three factors Punch considers: will it drive footfall? Does it increase transaction value? Does it increase cross-category selling? 2 Premiumise
It is ideal if the brand you're sure will sell is a premium one. These can be sold at a high margin by being offered as a 'trading up' option. However, a word of warning about promoting premium drinks comes from Pat Venning, Pernod Ricard UK's head of marketing.
"The types of consumers these drinks appeal to are not looking to have their leisure time invaded by mainstream marketing," he says.
For pubs which choose to promote such premium drinks "the days of branded bunting are gone," he adds. Instead, use less intrusive PoS. 3 Co-ordinate above-the-line and below-the-line activity
Schedule your promotional activity so that it runs concurrently with above-the-line marketing, or takes over when the above-the-line finishes, maintaining momentum.
According to Brown "brands have historically tended to fail in this through not giving pub operators enough notice to ensure below-the-line activity happens at the same time as the above-the-line campaign and I have not seen anything to suggest that is improving."
And Venning admits: "Getting new campaigns out rapidly is hard going, but it's what we strive to do."
However, individual pubs can be more reactive than the marketing departments of drinks companies. Keeping an eye on ads gracing TV and matching your in-pub marketing is well worth doing. 4 Link promotions to events
Campaigns are more likely to be effective if they are linked to big events. "If you are going to promote a product, why not base it around something customers are going to buy into anyway?" asks Bremner. "Why doesn't Malibu create something called 'Malowe'en' around Hallowe'en?"
Guinness is one brand particularly associated with this tactic - using sports sponsorships and backing St Patrick's Day. According to Paul Cornell, Guinness marketing manager: "Huge numbers of men watch sport in pubs. It's a no-brainer that you can target marketing at them based around that." 5 Make salesmen and women of your barstaff
"Good barstaff can be incredibly powerful, especially if incentivised to sell a brand," says Brown. "However, brands don't tend to embrace them because training can be incredibly labour-intensive." There is nothing to stop an individual licensee instructing staff to promote a particular brand, though. 6 Get sampling right
Many brands run in-pub product sampling initiatives. But will this do anything more long term than create a spike in sales on that drink on the occasion of the sampling?
"You have to deliver the experience," says Venning. "There's a difference between that and straightforward sampling." He points to a recent Jameson and ginger sampling campaign "where we said here's what makes Jameson different, here's why we think you should consume it with ginger. You need to then ensure there is communication to remind customers about the brand when they come back in the following week or month." 7 Get PoS right
It's a truism that much of the PoS material sent out is thrown swiftly in the bin by licensees. Brands acknowledge this, but say - if done well - PoS is effective in promoting brands.
"It's about understanding the consumer so that the PoS has relevance to them," says Illy Jaffar, whose role - as Pernod Ricard UK's head of brand advocacy - includes branding venues used in the company's experiential campaigns. This PoS exploits "the five touch points: sight, sound, taste, touch and smell". A recent Havana Club initiative ticked off sight with Cuban paraphernalia, sound with a Cuban band, and taste and smell with rum cocktails.
But successful PoS need not be so sophisticated. Consider where to place banners and tent cards so they are visible and most likely to influence sales. Venning says: "What you don't want as a consumer is to get up to the bar and be faced with seven different bits of PoS. Instead, focus on different brands at different points."8 Engage with the brand
Licensees are "horrifically" consulted by brands on below-the-line activity, according to Bremner.
When brand reps come to offer you PoS material, you can negotiate and suggest concepts that would work for your pub. Brands such as Guinness are very receptive to this, claims Cornell. Taking the example of its link to the rugby, he says licensees need to demand what the brand is doing "while those games are on to drive footfall into the pub". 9 Consider a category approach
Bremner, in his former job at Everards, was behind the Cyclops beer-tasting notes which are used not only on the brewer's own beers but rolled out to many other brands. So he knows more than most about the virtues of promoting whole categories rather than one particular brand, and recommends that licensees can do likewise.
Bremner explains: "Cyclops would never have captured consumers' imaginations if we had applied it just to Everards, rather than using it to promote the whole beer category." 10 Pre-empt possible restrictions from government on alcohol advertising
With talk of new restrictions on drinks advertising, Brown suggests that it may be wise to start adapting your promotions in preparation.
One of the measures proposed by pressure groups, for example, is to ban overt mentions of brand names in primetime advertising.
The Punch marketing man admires the Carling adverts, which never actually name the brand they are advertising, for their attempt to pre-empt these prospective new conditions.