Sampling "FitBeer" at London City Runners Club.
Beer Tap badge research at the Glasgow Mindful Drinking Festival.
TV Presenter Adrian Chiles presentation at the Club Soda Beer Summit.
The Problem
Find new markets for low-and-no alcohol beer.
The Client
Club Soda is a mindful drinking movement, committed to helping people reduce their drinking; and persuade pubs, bars and restaurants to offer a wider range of low-and-no-alcohol drinks to make them more welcoming venues for everyone. They are a membership organisation, and they also work with new and established brands to help them get greater reach. The British Beer and Pub Association, via their Brewers' Research and Education Fund provided a grant to Club Soda to work on this project.
I worked on this project alone, with general assistance from Club Soda colleagues.
UX Tools and Techniques Used
• Analytics
• Desk and Original Research
• Service Design Creation
• User Journey Mapping
• Desk and Original Research
• Service Design Creation
• User Journey Mapping
Also, in terms of soft skills, the project required:
• Collaboration
• Communication Skills
• Event Management
• Communication Skills
• Event Management
A Proposed Solution
In Britain, pubs are closing at a rate or around 18 per week. Many factors are often attributed to this, including high tax, cheap drinks in supermarkets, and a general reduction in drinking habits and alcohol consumption. So, many licensed premises are diversifying, serving food, opening earlier, and making their pubs more family-friendly. Club Soda believes that pubs, bars, restaurants and clubs can make additional revenue by making their venues more welcoming to non-drinkers through selling more low-and-no-alcohol drinks. This project sets out to research this thesis.
The Beer Summit
In order to better understand the problems facing brewers and venue owners, I organised a "Beer Summit", which was attended by representatives from brewers such as Adnams, Big Drop, InBev, Infinite Session, Heineken and Nirvana. Also is attendance were representatives from pub chains and the Campaign for Real Ale; trade press; beer writer Jane Peyton and BBC TV personality Adrian Chiles. Adrian, who had recently presented a BBC programme "Drinkers Like Me" about his relationship with alcohol delivered a keynote..
Personas, User Groups and Co-Design
Adrian Chiles ended his keynote with a challenge, "I want a world where there is a decent low-or-no-alcohol beer in every pub I go into". Based on this we set a series of exercises for the delegates.
Each group, which consisted of a mix of skills and expertise, were assigned a domain: Online Retailer, Rural Pub, Restaurant, Shop, Student Union. We asked each group to create two Personas of who they believed would be typical customers (this was done with the caveat that in order to do such an exercise in reality, original research would be required). Using these personas, the groups created User Journeys for each persona, to identify where opportunities to sell the users low-and-no beer were being missed.
Based on this exercise, we asked each group to suggest an experiment that could be carried out, that they could contribute to with product, a venue etc. This was the true purpose of the exercise, to get the delegates to commit right there and then, in front of their peers to taking action.
The Experiments
Based on collaborations forged in the Beer Summit, and with existing Club Soda connections, a series of experiments was agreed upon, and they are currently being undertaken (note: the Shop and Online Retailer projects are longer-term and out-with the time available for my placement at Club Soda):
Big Drop & Rural/Urban pub
Big Drop are an alcohol-free craft brewery, with their bottled beers available in retailers as large as Tesco. They would like to transition into draught beer, but very few British pubs sell low-or-no alcohol beer on tap.
We have teamed Big Drop up with two pubs. The Tempest Arms, in Skipton, near Leeds, is a destination restaurant pub, with about 80% of customers driving there. The Old Red Cow is a London City pub, with many of their customers coming for lunch. Both pubs therefore would seem to be ideal venues to be serving low-or-no alcohol beer.
During the month of January - when pubs are usually quiet due to people observing Dry January - these pubs will be selling draught Big Drop Pale Ale. We will be monitoring sales, and conducting some experiments including tastings, price promotions and up-selling techniques.
FitBeer & London City Runners
London City Runners is the largest free running club in London. They have a new clubhouse in railway arch in Bermondsey. Post runs, member return to the club, but are reluctant to drink high-calorie beers or soft drinks so drink water, which the club makes no money on, and thus the club are not making the revenue they need to keep the clubhouse going.
We teamed London City Runners up with FitBeer, a London-based alcohol-free beer brand, made in the German tradition of low-calorie "bekoemmlich" (wholesome) beer. I ran a tasting evening with the brewers, and FitBeer is now being sold regularly in the clubhouse. We are gathering quantitative data in the form of sales figures, and qualitative data in the form of questionnaires.
The result of the collaboration is increased revenue for London City Runners, and marketing insights for FitBeer to help them gain a foothold in the health club market.
Infinite Session & Cookhouse Joe
Adrian Chiles' favourite restaurant is London Soho's Cookhouse Joe. Since moderating his drinking Adrian is on a mission to make sure that every pub and restaurant he goes into sells low-or-no alcohol beer. He asked Club Soda to hook up Joe's with a quality craft brewer. I decided to conduct an experiment with the pairing of their menu of Lebanese-Inspired chicken dishes with alcohol-free beer from London-based Infinite Session. To help with this I undertook some beer and food pairing courses at the Beer and Cider Academy.
Throughout December we ran an experiment monitoring sales of the alcohol-free Pale Ale, IPA and Pils, a well as asking diners to rate the beer with postcard-sized questionnaires, in return for discounts on the beer.
SOAS University of London
SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) University of London has a diverse population of students, with many abstaining from drinking for reasons of religious observance. In order to create more inclusive and welcoming social venues the SOAS Student Bar are always looking for alcohol alternative drinks.
I ran a "Low and No Alcohol Beer Tasting Evening" in the main Student Union bar on their quiz night. I contributed beer-related questions to the quiz and the Quiz Master challenged students to come to my "bar" and, with the help of some tasting notes, try a low/no alcohol version of their favourite beer. Each person who took up the challenge filled out a Tasting Questionnaire, and were asked to complete a longer iPad-based TypeForm questionnaire, gathering valuable quantitative and qualitative data..
Running a Beer Challenge.
Quiz questions for pub quiz.
Beer Tasting Notes.
Beer Tasting Questionnaire.
iPad TypeForm questionnaire.
"Stocking and Selling Low and No Alcohol Beer" Training Video
The research has revealed that there are many issues that stand in the way of people buying the product, ranging from preconceptions about the taste to the lack of understanding of the difference between low and no terminology.
To counter these issues, part of the output of this project is the production of a series of videos, encouraging venues to sell low and no alcohol beer and offering advice to staff on how to best promote and sell it.
Filming has included interviewing bar staff giving examples of their experiences, and giving advice, and filming "Pepsi Challenge"-style taste tests with customers, to film their (mostly) positive responses to drinking different brands and types of low and no alcohol beer.
Interview with SOAS Assistant Bar Manager.
Taste Tests with students.
B-Roll footage of the SOAS Student Bar.
END