Anyone who knows me will reckon there is no diety that could be so cruel as to have Tennents at £2 a pint when I'm on my low/ just say juice alcohol diet.
What a time to visit Scotland. What a time to visit St Andrews with 4 Greene king pubs in the auld grey toon
It started this week and the idea is to get bums on seats. I thought bums tended to throw seats and at £2 a pint you'll definitely encourage a few bams to venture out this Friday night. For some bams it could light up a weekend.
I immediately wondered which crazy marketing person thought this one up. I wondered whether Tennents being battered by the arrival of Morretti and Madri was now feeling the knockout blows and it's stock pile of kegs was requiring warehousing.
No doubt it's a cheeky move but one I sadly won't avail myself of. I might wonder about the price theory though. I might wonder about opportunity Costa and displacement. If you start selling for £2 how much £7 turnover do you lose.
In many of their shops, Greene King have a few weel kent pubs in town, they fail miserably to trade on their name, history and location.
Chelsea and I were out walking yesterday and stopped at the Sheip Heid. Never have I seen so many people turned away for drinks and or lunch. It was a Thursday in September and yet it was mobbed. Largely they were American and clearly the concierge in their local hotel had recommended it as their Ubers pulled up and pulled out I found myself mumbling about the state owned taxi company that taxed at source then reminded myself it was one of my manifesto commitments 25 years ago.
Chelsea and I talked about the industry and he was telling me about a number of reasons why Greene king just didn't get it. Imagine running pubs and not getting it but yes, in the centre of town you can find busy and quiet pubs. Some people queue over an hour for lunch while others serving cheaper and better fare are empty. Quite simply some marketing departments like their own ideas and £2 for a Tennents was clearly one. Swelling the coffers by letting people know about their Royal Mile pub was clearly outsourced. No bar on the mile should be empty at lunchtime during the festival yet Greene King succeed.
I've always been a fan of Blackadder and Baldrick economics, so this one deserves it's place in the top 10 cunning plans of all time.
On economic grounds it makes no sense. £2 or £3 it is exactly the same to a buyer who is currently paying £5. It is much cheaper. The is price sensitivity, price elasticity but then you get random pricing like this. If you split the difference you get a marketing slogan of 2 for a fiver, if you make it £2.49 you get changed off £10 for 4 pints. I can't see any rational for £2 except madness. If something is too cheap it's suspicious. Just ask Ratners.
When you are charging £6-7 for a pint of anything else it's clearly just a nonsense to go to £2. You are now insulting your £6 buyers by saying you've improved your sourcing but not on their pint of choice. When the £7 buyer says what about me if the answer is sorry mate, you might just get sorry mate back. Worse still they shift for two weeks to £2 a pint. You then find yourself over stocked on the Madri, Innis and Gunn and you have none of the turnover at £7. Let me see, have your staff wages dropped or any of your other overheads. It's not purely a units of consumption. That's an alcoholics game and I play it. So your customers those locals or tourists now think youre robbing them most of the time because £2 is the right price.
This leads me to conclude perhaps the nervous argument from the sales department who are worried that buying £1m worth of pints with a short sell by date may be tough to shift. Especially as it's a week before the students arrive.
I think that then suggests this deal has been pushed more by Tennents emptying their stock overhang or risk going into reducing production. An absolute nightmare for any manufacturer. If you have capacity you want to maintain it at all costs. You certainly don't want to restructure your plant just because of a dip in sales.
Let's be honest though, this is more than a dip on sales. It's a collapse and by my guess it is a sure sign Tennents may disappear very quickly.
I have been a Tennents drinker for a while but recently found my constitution is much better suited to Guinness, Hever lee and Morretti. I enjoy Mahou and Estrella in Spain and apart from it's price Estrella has travelled well to being brewed over here.
Tennents thinks, it can now only compete on price which means it has already lost. It had always held its price despite completion but the latest wave of big spending marketing, not least Madri has seen them fall below their scale. Once your economies of scale are breached, you're iin a downward cobwebs cycle. The board room will be running around in circles arguing over the relationship between price and sales.
The truth is the relationship exists between punter and product.
What they don't see is that perception means a lot to a punter.
When a punter sees the price of £2 in a Greene king pub, he will hassle his local to ask why. Punters will perhaps not want to pay double or more in their local thereby damaging the sales in the "premium" market.
Any sharp eyed observer would see a great opportunity to lower the price of non Tennents drink in non Greene king bars. Rook to Queens bishop five I think it's called.
And how about off sales. Will people pay £1.50 a tin in supermarkets when you can get a pint for £2.
Oh, the flaws, the flaws, the flaws, as we reach soon to scrape oor flairs, the race to the bottom starts with guy itchy baws, nobody wins in a race to the bottom of the drawers.
Except the consumer for two weeks. When the dust settles and Tennents closes in 2026 after a restructuring year in 2025 you can smile and say we all saw it coming. When Greene king report trouble in the pub estate as insurance costs rise and dwindling sales remember I sold my shares 5 years ago.
There's always a winner and in my case I might not enjoy the £2 a pint but it is nice to know my Chemo starts Monday and I can pop to the Starbank in a week or so as the offer comes to an end.
Spoken like a true Jakey 🍻
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