This has been widely attacked by representatives of the pub industry, being described as “disgusting” and “ridiculous”, and with one commentator saying that “the company’s ethical approach has long been forgotten.”
However, this response comes across as distinctly thin-skinned and precious. Pubs are commercial businesses, not sacred institutions, and have no right to be shielded from the rough-and-tumble of competition. Nobody would object to an ad saying “don’t watch the footy at home, it’s much more fun down the pub”, so why is there a problem with the opposite?
The venues that benefit most from the football will tend to be knocked-through drinking barns where most of the customers are on Stella or Madri, not chocolate-box locals or trendy craft bars, many of which won’t even show it in the first place. In any case, if you are looking for good-value beer offers to drink at home, the Co-op is far from the cheapest place to go.
Being referred to in your competitors’ advertising is generally regarded as a sign of strength rather than weakness, as pointed out by licensee Joe Buckley, who took the ad as a compliment to the pub sector. For many, pubs have come to be seen as essential venues for big sporting occasions in a way that they weren’t a generation ago. The pub trade is fully entitled to respond by pointing out that, not only do pubs offer much more atmosphere, they also have a far wider range of beers, including cask, which is not an option at home.
Pub operators would be well advised to accept the realities of a competitive market rather than just whining that life is unfair. And, yet again, the anti-drink lobby will be laughing into their sarsaparilla as the two segments of the drinks industry are at loggerheads.
But pubs are sacred, Mudge lad, did you not get the memo?
ReplyDeleteSupermarkets are evil, pubs are divine. That's the rules of beer writing. You won't get a Guild award until you follow the rules.
Is the campaign for pubs becoming the campaign against supermarkets?
ReplyDeleteOh well, that's them failing miserably to save anything then.
The "Campaign for Pubs" is really a campaign against pubcos. It often comes across more as a campaign against pubs.
DeleteIt's very much a campaign for pubs and campaigns against the activities of Pubcos which are a bigger threat to the pub than any other external influence. They're eating the trade from within.
DeleteAnd of course you can smoke at home !
ReplyDeleteA very good point!
DeleteNot in my home :-(
DeleteI wouldn't go to the pub if they were showing football anyway. Load of drunken people shouting at a television screen - where's the pleasure in that?
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Our Wednesday session moved out into the beer garden last night
DeleteIt's not the Co-op's job to see save pubs, it's to stay viable by selling bottles.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, tremendous hypocrisy from an organisation who have been promoting Beer 52 and similar drink at home options, and whose members seem rarely to leave the sofa.
But..but...
(RM)
Agree with very nearly all of that- the only bit I'd slightly disagree with is that around here, practically every establishment is showing it, sadly. Personally, I'm avoiding most pubs for the moment, with the one exception being a hotel in town that shows the matches in a back room, not the bar.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the two options are so very different that any whining either way is just irrelevant. I'll buy beer at my local Co-op (or other local shop) if it suits me, and I'll go to the pub if it suits me. The relative prices don't really figure in that and sitting in front of the TV and being in the pub are not comparable.
I'd be happy if supermarkets were stopped from selling booze and pubs re-instated their "off-doors", with all alcohol for home consumption to be sold only from pubs again, as used to happen. Then all the closed pubs could re-open and be gloriously busy and lively. This, and other reversions to past norms, is what conservative governments should do. Supermarkets don't need the money.
ReplyDeleteThere were always stand-alone off-licences.
DeleteNot very free-market, though, is it?
DeleteI can't recall a time when the pub was the only place to but takeout booze,
Deletein a weird turn of irony, my local Co-op group, who confusingly are independent of the Co-op who did this ad yet still have the same deal, are reshaping their portfolio by shutting local stores, ie saving money by closing stores, and leaving the only bunch of local mini supermarkets in the area that were competing with them that were all former pubs not so long ago.
ReplyDeleteBut I didnt get the point of the protest, it struck me almost as an attempt to remind people they still exist hoping to get picked by the media running obscure Euro2024 related stories to fill column inches. Because the thing that stood out other than supermarkets have been running these kinds of deals at every major football tournament for decades, was there was no mention of the pubs not showing the football in all this.
How can you campaign only for the pubs showing the football as impacted by this drinking of cheaper Coop cans of beer at home, surely they should be encouraging people to go to pubs without football more because most of them are probably wondering where all their customers are currently, instead of the pubs with the football who look to doing fine as well as can be expected right now.
fortunately there are still enough of those around to me, I can find a few to drink in pre or post match, though given the last time I tried of the 4 I visited 2 were partially closed for private functions/weddings, which was as weird as it sounds, and the other 2 the beer was terrible, so I retired home to watch the game in peace drinking my Co-op beer, and I could see my telly perfectly, no queue to get served either, or use the facilities.
I thought going to the pub after 8pm was a thing of the past anyway.
ReplyDeleteMy local co-op has started to re-stock Landlord which I'm enjoying on those Sundays when I'm not keen on driving to the supermarket. Their Asahi lager was brewed and bottled by Peroni in Italy - perhaps that's why it was dry and crisp?
ReplyDeleteI had a 660ml bottle of Asahi with a Spoons meal deal and was slightly surprised to see it was brewed by Peroni, who of course are owned by Asahi.
DeleteThe good folk of Chichester will be all too aware that watching the football at home can be much safer than in a knocked-through drinking barn where most of the customers are on Stella or Madri.
DeleteYour Asahi was exactly the same as that brewed anywhere else in Europe and the UK, and imported from Italy because there's a lack of capacity at the Griffin Brewery. Some Asahi has also been produced at Cameron's in Hartlepool.
Delete@Paul - really don't follow you there :-|
DeleteThe point which you seem to have missed is that the Co-op's advertising implied that their product was better than that of a pub, which is contrary to advertising regulations. And if you are in any way supportive of pubs, you'd think that you'd support the organisations that support them also.
ReplyDeleteSurely it's commonplace in advertising to draw comparisons with competitors' products. And the only implication made is that you *may* get a better view at home, which is only a matter of subjective opinion.
Deleteif its against advertising regulations, which I suspect it isnt subjectively, then write to the Advertising Standards Authority, anything else is just a cheap self promoting publicity stunt.
Deleteand I am supportive of pubs, and that includes those not showing the football, which dont seem to get a shout out in this spat with the Co-op. how can you campaign only for the pubs showing football ? Even more so when we are in the height of the British sporting calendar with Wimbledon, Test match cricket, the British GP and only 15 days till the Olympics, do pubs showing those not count too when the football inevitably finishes and disappears behind a paywall for the new season again ?
A 57-year-old man was beaten to death at The Dolphin and Anchor Wetherspoons venue in Chichester after England's Euro 2024 game against Denmark.
ReplyDeleteOh, I hadn't seen that :-( I was in there in May - one of the most genteel of Spoons, I would have said.
DeleteWell, if that's "one of the most genteel" ........... !
DeleteBut having experienced chaos during loud televised sport not far from me 55 months earlier I can't say I'm too surprised.
I think it depends on the prices Bathams pubs are closest to off licence including supermarket off licence prices.
ReplyDeleteGood to see that one licensee finds that supermarket’s ad campaign amusing.
Oscar
One of the more amusing things about following this on twitter is the people who are most inclined to bleat how disgusting it is for the Co Op to advertise not watching football in a pub are those least likely to watch football in a pub, go in a pub showing football or afford acclaim to any pub showing football. They are the drinkers most inclined to swerve such pubs and acclaim pubs without TV screens and sport.
ReplyDeleteRather like performative boycotts of Wetherspoon's ;-)
Delete