3rd April 2012
Can you imagine any of your
customers saying to their friends, "Fancy popping to the pub for a quick schooner?" or "How about a cheeky two-thirds?"
The pint has always been intrinsically linked to British pub culture, but the UK government has introduced a new measurement for beer sales and it's not quite a pint. Whether you call it the schooner or two-thirds of a pint it is starting to be adopted by some and may feature in your pub too.
Heineken UK has jumped on board with the idea and has had 500,000 schooner glasses branded with the company's logo and is having them distributed to pubs across the UK. It has suggested that two-third pints will boost draught sales, but will customers embrace the new measures as quickly as Heineken has?
Duncan Barlow, Heineken regional sales director for York and Tees, said: "Research also suggests that the glass will also appeal to male and female drinkers who see the new two-thirds pint glass as the perfect 'halfway house' between traditional pint and half-pint beer serves."
It is important to understand what it is that your customers want and then aim to supply this to them, which is why
consumer feedback is so important in the drinks business. Has Heineken had all of those glasses printed for no reason or in these difficult economic times do drinkers want to pay less for a little less in their pint?
We have all been in a pub and seen a customer ask to have their pint topped up as there is more head on it than they would like and they feel they are getting short changed. The adoption of the new measure into the hearts of the UK's drinking public is also dependant on the shape of the glass. Will they be slightly smaller versions of the traditional pint glass or have they been redesigned in order to look different - this may affect the perceptions of them. Only time will tell is we are to turn into a nation of schooner drinkers, but in the meantime make mine a pint!
