Heineken celebrates success of scheme to boost pubs' online presence

The White Horse, in the village of Borstal, in Medway, Kent, reopened in December last year after an extensive refurbishment. Owners Russell David and Derek Butcher bought the freehold from Greene King and set about transforming the venue, which had been condemned. Its demise would have left the village without a pub.

“We’re both local lads and didn’t want to see it go. This is our village — so if the pub closed, then the village would die as well,” said David.

Neither has a background in running pubs and both are busy with their own businesses, so after installing a manager they recognised they needed help with marketing the pub and attracting new customers.

This is where Heineken came in. After signing a drinks-supply deal with the company, the regional manager introduced David and Butcher to its new Our Shout scheme and the potential benefits it could offer them.

In exchange for stocking Heineken’s beer and cider brands, Our Shout offers licensees a personalised menu of rewards designed to drive footfall, increase dwell-time and boost spend per head, including website creation and maintenance, management of social media, local print and radio advertising, Wi-Fi and a free tablet computer.

Heineken has partnered with digital agency whynot! to deliver these services to  participating pubs.

Communication​

Heineken category and trade marketing director Andy Turner said that marketing an independent business has changed dramatically over the past decade, and some pubs need additional help to communicate their offer to customers and get them through the door.

“One of the biggest challenges pubs face is driving footfall. So building a website or setting up a social media presence should ultimately be about that,” he said.

“Once you’ve got customers in, it’s about keeping them there for longer — and hopefully [encouraging them to] spend a bit more money.

“The owners here are busy guys; they have other businesses to run and don’t really have the time to think about building a website or creating a social-media strategy. But they need those things to help grow their pub business,” he added.

For Heineken, the initiative is is about helping the licensee market their business, which in turn drives incremental beer and cider volume in the outlet.

The agency whynot! takes as much or as little control as required, but chiefly it’s about removing complexity from the publican. They can still tweet or post to Facebook, while whynot! manages the account, liaises with the licensee about upcoming events that need promotion and implements a marketing plan. Each pub has an account manager and there is a monthly call with them to plan activity.

Rollout​

Our Shout has now rolled out to c250 pubs across the UK, each using various aspects of the service and equating to about £1m worth of
cost savings, Turner reckons.

One happy customer has even labelled the scheme as being “far and away the best form of support I have encountered during 20 years in the industry”.

Plans to develop the initiative include adding value in other areas, such as offering bespoke PoS material, new equipment such as glasswashers or fridges, and making available tailored deals with professional services providers such as accountants and stocktakers.

The White Horse was one of the first pubs to use Our Shout and David has been impressed with the results so far.

“We’ve tripled sales at the pub compared with the level achieved under the White Horse’s previous owner — and without the scheme we couldn’t have done that,” he said.

“This scheme is pushing our business out there, attracting new customers and promoting our events. It’s probably bringing in younger customers too, as they can use Facebook and the free Wi-Fi more frequently.

“Running a pub is a learning curve for us, and there’s more work to be done — but we wouldn’t be where we are now without Our Shout.