Good morning
I recently went on a long walk through the back streets of South London, I love a good city walk. On that walk I found myself near the famous Camberwell Arts College and passed several pubs and bars dedicated to their student population.
I was impressed by the lengths that they were going to to not only encourage spend, but also dwell time and overall customer satisfaction.
The Black Horse particularly seemed to be getting it right, offering patrons use of a free pool table, free darts board and even a free Wii (computer games for you oldies out there) room. We all know that students love a freebie, but this is a way of giving without losing- these “freebies” actually have the end result of keeping customers in the venue for longer. And longer dwell time means a higher spend.
I asked the members of our online community of pub and bar goers whether the presence of a free pool table/darts board or games room would make them stay longer and spend more in pub/bar
54% said that a free activity would keep them in a pub longer, with 29% telling us that a free dart board would do the trick and 39% claiming a free pool table would encourage them to stay in a pub/bar for longer.
Taking into consideration that 39% of Generation Z claim to be teetotal, pubs and bars really need to work harder than ever before to convince the younger generation to stay and spend- even if that is on soft drinks and not buckets of Vodka cocktails…Oh, I remember THOSE days…
Clubs, events, games, all of these things will help to plug the gap of the nearly four in ten who no longer drink their body weight in cheep booze on a night out. The opportunity for pubs and bars to be part of these customers’ lives is still there, but it might take a bit more effort these days.
I’m very excited to see the entertaining SAS Band down in Guildford tomorrow night after a work event tonight…I’m not so excited about the 6am start to fit in a 50 mile bike ride training for my Vietnam charity ride first!
Whatever you’re doing, have a great couple of days,
Katy
Follow me on Twitter @katykammedia
