The tenanted pub sector has yet to exploit the full potential of social media to compete with marketing messages from the managed sector, Admiral Taverns chief executive Kevin Georgel has said.
Georgel told MCA: “Use of social media is a big opportunity to leased and tenanted pubs because in many respects in terms of projecting your offer to consumers it levels the field. Historically managed pubs have always had the benefit of big marketing budgets that tenanted operations struggled to match but there’s no reason now why an individual tenant can’t have the same kind of reach as a managed competitor purely through skilled use of social media.
“We see individuals utilising social media to an incredible degree. Now it’s about sharing that success on a wider scale. The potential is huge. Probably half our estate aren’t using social media to its full potential.”
Food has been a key driver of sales growth for the company in recent years but Georgel said he was conscious of the need for the right balance.
He said: “We continue to evolve the food offer but what is critical is that it is complementary to the wet offer. We are predominantly wet-led community pubs. We have seen food rise to about 15% of turnover. That feels about right. If you go as high as 30%/40% it changes the offer.”
On wet sales, he said: “There have been some signs that wet-led pubs are faring reasonably well in comparison to the potential for over-capacity in food-led offers.”
He said the continued progress of the 111 pubs bought from Heineken at end of 2014 had helped drive overall drinks performance.
