Category: In the News

Craft brewery says redefining Britain’s most popular beer style can end binge drink culture for good.

Scotland’s largest independent brewery, BrewDog, has set its sights on obliterating the ‘insidious culture around lager drinking’ cultivated by decades of mass marketing – by launching a beer that takes the lager style back to its roots.

Launching yesterday, This. Is. Lager. is a 4.7% ABV pilsner designed to offer lager drinkers a craft beer alternative to the mass-produced lagers that still dominate the UK market.

This. Is. Lager. is brewed with 100% malt and ten times the hops of most industrial lagers. To demonstrate the difference to those still unfamiliar or resistant to the craft beer revolution, BrewDog offered free 1/3 pint tasters of This. Is. Lager. at all of its UK bars yesterday.

James Watt, cofounder at BrewDog, said: “This. Is. Lager. redefines a beer style that has for so long been defined by shallow, listless beers undeserving of the name.”

“For years, global breweries have spent millions convincing the British public that lager is a beer style best served as fizzy, tasteless liquid cardboard propped up by snappy straplines, glamorous advertising or counterfeit stories of foreign provenance. We hope to perpetuate a movement of craft breweries blazing a new trail for lager, proving it’s a misunderstood, neglected beer style.”

Craft beer is the star ascendant in the drinks market, with BrewDog named the fastest growing drinks brand in the UK within a context of declining beer sales for mainstream, mass-production breweries.  The artisan brewer is immediately making This. Is. Lager. part of its headliners range to ‘convert’ those still unfamiliar with craft beer as it plots destroying the binge drink culture that has long overshadowed the industry.

“Lager is often demonised or derided as the choice drink of chavs and louts, which is the result of laddish marketing that diverts attention away from taste and enjoyment and undermines the potential of lager as a creative and artisanal beer style,” he added.

The death of binge-drinking

“If we can redefine lager in the UK, we will redefine our relationship with alcohol. We can actually start to reverse binge-drinking trends currently being tackled by toothless and misguided legislative proposals unlikely to ever see the light of day anyway. With the volume-driven industry leaders trying to pull the wool over drinkers’ eyes and the government trying to legislate their way out of a media-disaster cul-de-sac, it’s time we treated drinkers like adults and gave them an alternative to stack ‘em high sell ‘em cheap beers with no soul or taste.

“Gone are the days of lager being synonymous with extra-cold taps, lads on tour, fake Aussie accents, Burberry baseball caps and pot bellies. That is not lager. This. Is. Lager.” he added.

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Connections don’t equate to brand engagement.

More than half of Britain’s adult population engaged in social media do little to increase brand interest and create positive associations with brands online, finds Kantar Media in a new social media segmentation from its TGI Clickstream study of online consumer behaviour.

Richard Keogh, head of Kantar Media TGI UK, said: “This new segmentation provides crucial insights into the level of engagement and influence that social media users have online. The different segments show that clicks and connections alone will not reveal consumers’ actual engagement levels.”

Based on an analysis of the social media connections and engagement of more than 50 million adults (aged 15+), TGI’s segmentation uncovered six groups of social media users:
1. Social Spectators – a disengaged group with a respectable number of connections, but the least likely of all social media users to buy goods online, or to read or update their social media accounts. Neither do they post product reviews or follow brands online. They tend to be older and, because they don’t carry high economic or cultural capital, are unlikely to have much clout or spending power for brands.
2. Online Experimenters – are potentially very valuable for brands to target given their crucial combination of purchase power and online engagement.  Accounting for just 10% of the adult social media-using population, this group are more likely to be older and particularly likely to engage with brands and to buy products online.
3 Connected Engagers – have the highest level of connections and influence. They account for just 3% of all social media users, but, because they lack economic and cultural clout, may not be the big spenders. They are, however, most likely to spread the corporate word online.
4. Connected Dabblers – this group represents 10% of the social media-using population and has a high level of connections. They follow brands on social media but are less likely to post reviews about products/brands. They are engaged but less influential than Connected Engagers.
5. Passive Socialites – have a high level of connections but don’t follow brands or post reviews. This means they have a low level of influence. They account for 4% of the population.
6. Credible Contributors – account for 22% of the population. This group has an average level of connections and engagement, being highly likely to follow brands and post reviews online. They are active and engaged with medium amounts of influence.

Keogh added: “Marketers should review who they are targeting online to ensure they are directing their social media activities (and marketing budget) at the most appropriate audience.

“For instance, Social Spectators display very little online engagement in spite of having a moderate number of connections. Connected Engagers however, who are most active online have minimal economic or cultural clout. Comparatively, our Online Experimenters, who have relatively few connections online, could prove particularly influential in driving sales and growth for brands. What they lack in connections they make up for in the way they embrace social media and online purchasing.

“Marketers need to look beyond widely accepted metrics to specific evidence of engaged online activity to determine how valuable consumers are. Now is a good time for brands to review who they’re really speaking to online.”

Retailers drive 33 per cent increase.

The number of coupons redeemed in the UK has reached 365 million redemptions in the first half of 2014, according to Valassis.

Findings released by the UK’s coupon experts show that the number of coupons redeemed from January to June this year is 33 per cent higher than the same period last year, and 11 per cent higher than the second half of 2013. The first half of 2013 saw 275 million coupons redeemed and 328 million redeemed in the second half of the year.

The rise in coupon redemption is driven predominantly by retailers, with 43 per cent more retailer-issued coupon redemptions in the first half of this year than in the same period in 2013. This contrasts with manufacturer-issued coupons which, despite a sharp growth over the past 18 months, were flat in the first half of 2014.

Overall, the number of coupons redeemed by UK consumers has more than trebled since 2006, from 109 million in the first half of 2006 to 365 million just eight years later.

Charles D’Oyly, managing director of Valassis, said: “Many supermarket shopping trips are now driven by savings behaviour, and coupons form a key part of this with consumers searching for the best discounts before they set foot in store. This often means that supermarket choice is determined by the most attractive and relevant offers.

“Retailers are acutely aware of this, with coupons playing a key role in their promotional strategy in a bid to attract shoppers to their stores and give them the competitive advantage.”

New research has revealed an increase in the number of people choosing to search online for wealth product providers rather than seek advice from an independent financial adviser.  

The research, commissioned by Equifax, asked UK consumers with savings and investments and who are aware of the changes in adviser charges as a result of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR), whether they have changed the way they use financial advisers in the last 12 months. More than a third (36%) said they now conduct their own research of wealth product providers, compared to 27% in 2012. 

Of the third who say they are now researching providers online, more than half (56%) are women, which illustrates the importance for wealth product providers to employ appropriate and relevant marketing techniques when targeting this demographic.

Paul Birks, decisions solutions director, Equifax, said: “Our research strongly suggests that, as more consumers search for products and advice direct, this creates a great opportunity for wealth and investment product providers.

“However, to capitalise on this, they need to be able to access accurate insight into their customers, including having a greater understanding of their needs and when and why they are most likely to purchase wealth and investment products in the future.”

“Armed with actual purchasing activity, providers can create effective and highly targeted direct to consumer campaigns, thereby achieving the best ROI”, continued Birks. “Using Equifax Investor Insights can help providers go some way to meeting their ‘Know Your Customer’ and ‘Treating Customers Fairly’ regulatory requirements.”

Based on more than £345 billion of actual investment sales data shared by wealth and investment providers through the Equifax operated Touchstone Data Exchange, Equifax Investor Insights provides the value and frequency of investment product purchases. By including insight such as age, risk and products held, providers gain a more accurate understanding of their clients.

The UK DMA has warned advertising mail suppliers to financial services businesses and charities that they could be sitting on a ‘VAT timebomb’ following HMRC’s two-year delay in issuing guidance on how it will impose VAT rules for the channel.

The industry has been left in the lurch since April 2012, when HMRC announced that it had stripped bulk mail of its VAT-exempt status. Since then, many advertising mail suppliers have used the practice of ‘single sourcing’ – combining postage costs with production costs – for cutting out the VAT liabilities for financial services businesses and charities, which are unable to claim back or charge VAT.

In April 2012, the DMA alerted the industry to HMRC’s change of VAT rules for bulk and issued its own guidance, which highlighted the potential dangers of single sourcing for advertising mail suppliers.

For the past two years the DMA has been calling on HMRC to issue clear guidance on whether it will exempt single-sourced advertising mail from VAT charges. The DMA is now concerned that supplier businesses that were advised to interpret the rules in this way could now be hit with large back-dated VAT bills, as well as penalties.

Mike Lordan, the UK DMA’s director of external affairs, said HMRC’s lack of communication could put many advertising mail suppliers out of business: “Thanks to HMRC taking an unacceptable length of time to respond to our request for clarification, many businesses now could be sitting on a huge VAT timebomb.

“While we’ve advised businesses to take a cautious approach, the ambiguity surrounding the rules means that many businesses have interpreted the rules differently. Until now, HMRC has not issued guidance to the contrary. HMRC created this vacuum so it would be extremely unfair for them now to penalise companies.”

Jonathan Harman, managing director, MarketReach, added: “It is important HMRC and the wider mail industry work together to do everything possible to bolster this vital sector. Royal Mail would be concerned about any further increase in mailing costs for charities and other businesses that are unable to recover VAT. Direct contracts for postal services between charities or financial services companies and Royal Mail are unaffected – including Downstream Access contracts which continue to be exempt from VAT.” 

The DMA now will lobby the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to prevent HMRC from imposing backdated VAT charges and penalty fines for businesses while the industry was waiting for guidance.

The DMA is urging its members concerned about the impact of HMRC’s guidance on their advertising mail business to contact the DMA’s VAT helpdesk.

The UK marketing and advertising sector speaks with a middle-aged, male voice, new research has revealed.

A study conducted by PH Media Group found the most popular voice used by agencies is male and aged between 35 and 45. It is also friendly, clear and distinctive in tone, helping to reinforce a sense of accommodating service and authority.

The male voice is generally perceived by customers as authoritative and professional, so can work particularly well for business-to-business organisations.

But audio branding specialist PH Media Group advises firms to choose branding that suits their specific company values and claims a female voice may be equally as effective.

Dan Lafferty (pictured), head of voice and music at PH Media Group, said: “An older, deeper, masculine voice  can be used to convey a sense of authority, especially when combined with corporate music,.

“This is important in portraying a sense of knowledge, professionalism and standing to business customers.

“But that doesn’t mean it will necessarily be the best fit across the board and companies should use a voice which best reflects their products, customer base and service proposition. A feminine voice can be equally authoritative but is also perceived as soothing and welcoming, reinforcing an ethos of dedicated service.”

The research audited marketing and advertising agencies’ on-hold marketing – the messages heard by callers when they are put on hold or transferred – to reveal which voice and music is most widely used.

The most popular music tracks were purposeful and confident in style, designed to reinforce the energetic and creative nature of the industry.

Many firms opt to use popular music tracks but, due to existing emotional associations, these tracks are often unsuitable in convincing a customer to buy.

“Sound is a powerful emotional sense,” added Lafferty. “People will often attach feelings, both positive and negative, to a piece of commercial music, which will be recalled upon hearing it.

“Placing a piece of commercial music in an on-hold situation, no matter how cheery and upbeat it may seem, is a lottery of the individual’s previous experience of the track. Using commercial music is also a square peg, round hole scenario, taking a piece of music and trying to make it fit a new purpose to convey a message it was never intended to.

“A bespoke music track starts from the ground up, with each element forming or reflecting the brand proposition, and with there being no previous exposure among the client base. The physical attributes of the track – whether major, minor, fast, slow, loud or quiet – are used to communicate emotional meaning, rather than the personal experience of the individual.”