Drinks Pub of the Year 2008: Barracuda Group, Marlow, Buckinghamshire

Barracuda is clearly an innovative drinks pub company, seen through its drinks range and promotions across its three major pub brands: Smith & Jones, Barracuda Bars and Varsity.

However, the key to winning this award is centred in its fantastic loyalty card innovation. Myles Doran, marketing manager at Barracuda, called it "industry-defining", and the judging panel was in complete agreement.

The panel said the innovation, which has been running for seven years, puts it light years ahead of its pub company competition - especially in terms of remaining competitive against other retailers such as coffee shops and

restaurants.

The judging panel stated that the next two years will be critical for pub companies in terms of retail - and that Barracuda is in a position to adopt a more analytical approach than its rivals because of its loyalty cards.

"It can adopt a very precise analytical approach to drinks pricing and to range - it completely tailors its drinks offer around data capture. And this could put Barracuda in a unique position. It allows the company to tailor the drinks offer to its customers wants and it is clearly working," said the judges.

The loyalty card scheme centres on the

V-Card which has been running in its Varsity pubs since 2001. It rewards loyal customers by giving them a 25 per cent discount on their drinks order and then giving them online access to deals with other retail partners.

But more importantly it performs the same role as a supermarket clubcard - giving detailed data on the make-up of drinkers, which drinks they like and what time of the day and on which day of the week.

As Myles Doran, marketing manager at Barracuda puts it: "If we know that a particular Varsity bar attracts a number of Manchester United fans during football matches and they are all standard lager drinkers then we focus our promotional work on that.

"We are also able to target the database that we have built up with relevant promotional material for nights at their local Varsity that might interest them."

This concept has since been extended into Barracuda's Smith & Jones brand and on a lesser scale into the company's Juniper pub brand.

As well as this Barracuda manages to keep very strong relationships with its suppliers. Through this it has managed to make a success of a number of new listings across its estate, including the introduction of Bulmers Pear. A growing focus on cask ale has led to a closer relationship with cask brewers and this has in turn seen a 30 per cent growth in the number of sites selling the product. And very importantly there is a strong financial support behind what it does.

Barracuda approaches drinks retailing in a very tactical and direct way. It takes its lead from excellent consumer data capture and then executes what it wants very successfully. It is a worthy winner of the Drinks Pub Company of the Year award.