Greene King is looking to bring small scale business passion to its estate as it strives to become the nation’s most loved pub brand, chief executive Nick Mackenzie has said.
Speaking at MCA’s Pub Conference, Mackenzie said one of the most exciting things to come from its acquisition of barbecue and smokehouse pub-restaurant group Hickory’s had been the ability to observe how they operate as a smaller brand and how the staff “really live the brand day in, day out”.
“Seeing how the people are so passionate about that brand really helps us to understand that while they have a smaller number of outlets than some of our bigger brands but actually how do you deliver that smaller scale business passion […] into a big scale business… and do that consistently,” he told host and MCA contributing editor Peter Martin.
Building its brands has been a key pillar in Greene King’s current business strategy, since it was set out around four years ago.
Asked how a large pub operator can build a brand when it has so many individually branded pubs in its estate, Mackenzie said Greene King had spent a lot of time thinking about its existing and future brands and they tie in with the fact that pubs are often seen individually by their pub name, and had carried out research to gauge how the general public perceived the Greene King brand and what they wanted from the business.
While consumers often claim they want to disassociate themselves from big brands, a lot of people also value the understanding and consistency they get from them, he said.
“We have a number of brands like Chef & Brewer and Farmhouse Inns, that frankly don’t need Greene King over the door. They can stand on their own two feet and are very clear about their proposition,” he explained. The Greene King name over the door of around 900 of its other pubs is the brand it wants to build in the minds of the consumer.
Becoming the nation’s favourite pub brand is “a bold aspiration”, Mackenzie acknowledged. “It’s not something we’re going to do overnight, but it’s certainly a sort of ‘north star’ for us.”
A key strength of the brand that Greene King wants to emphasise is the quality of its own beers and its brewing heritage.
“Our business has more than 200 years of history and heritage and I think that is very important to customers, so we are trying to elevate that certainly, within our business.
“But the main thing we are trying to elevate is the service delivery of the brand,” he added. Greene King employs around 40,000 people, 26,000 of whom are employed within Greene King branded pubs, and therefore ensuring a consistent and high-level service culture is a key focus.
“What we are very clear on is that you have to get the basics right, and you have to deliver to that customer promise of what people think a Greene King pub should be. And it’s about investing and making sure the propositions we invest behind are really clear, understandable and they are differentiated.
“There has to be a reason for people to want to come to a Greene King pub as opposed to any other. That is a long journey and something that is going to take some time to really get right, but certainly we are starting to make progress,” Mackenzie explained.
He said the pandemic had highlighted the importance of pubs to communities and that he believed there was still an opportunity to gain new custom from people who don’t drink or who haven’t historically visited pubs.
While the trends for increased consumption of beer and media at home had “definitely eaten away at the edges of our market, it just means we have to fight harder to make sure the pub is compelling, and our brands are compelling and at the end of the day that comes back to great teams delivering great service and experiences”.
Commenting on the growth of the business, Mackenzie said Greene King planned to invest across multiple areas, including its leased and tenanted arm, hotels and its core pub brands.
“We are investing more than we did in 2019. We need to make sure our estate continues to be of really good quality,” he said, adding that this could include some churn at the bottom of its estate, as well as potential additions. “We will always look at acquisitions, but they have to be right strategically, and, as ever, they have to be at the right price.”
