Win an Ellickson Draft Table for your Bar

Posted by barblog on Feb 21, 2012 in Bar Marketing, Bar Service | 0 comments

We’ve reported a lot on this site about how technology is changing the landscape for bars and restaurants everywhere. Most of this reporting has been along the lines of how social media can be used to drive business. What we haven’t covered as much are the technological changes that are taking place right in the bar.

One such change is the arrival of the Ellickson Draft Table. I first came across this table in bars and Ireland when Diageo purchased a significant number of tables for bars across the country. They’ve since made their way across the pond and are finding their way into bars across the US.

What’s most exciting in my opinion is how easily these tables can drive revenue around an existing product – beer, by introducing an elevated customer experience. I’ve long been preaching about the fact that nobody comes to your bar just because you sell beer, they come because of the experience.

We recently started working with Ellickson USA to assist with their marketing efforts and have been astounded at just how much attention these tables have generated among bar owners.

To celebrate the fact that they are now approaching having 200 tables installed across the USA, I have managed to persuade them to give one lucky reader of TheBarBlogger.com a free draft table for their bar for four months!

Some locations have reported sales of $15,000/month per table which would be a nice chunk of additional revenue for any bar owner to take in! They have also guaranteed that the winner will have this table in place by March 15th, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

All you have to do to be in with a chance is click the Enter button below. Good luck!

Bar changes name for Super Bowl

Posted by ianmara on Feb 3, 2012 in Bar Marketing | 1 comment

Here’s a nice little marketing/PR story in advance of Sunday’s big game:

Those of you who follow American football are aware that the New York Giants are playing the New England Patriots in this year’s Super Bowl. Even if you aren’t much of a sports fan you probably have heard of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

(Hint: He’s the guy you’ve seen standing next to Gisele wearing the Uggs.)

Not surprisingly, Upper East Side watering hole Brady’s (named after the owner) is also keenly aware of the best player on the team opposing its beloved Giants this weekend. And they’ve noticed his last name. In a rather ingenious marketing ploy, Brady’s decided to do something about the unfortunate coincidence.

Normally, the front of Brady’s looks like this:

But for the weekend of the Super Bowl, the bar is renaming itself in honor of Eli Manning, the Giants quarterback who will be opposing Tom Brady. For the next three days the bar will be known as Manning’s.

To complete the change, the bar gave itself a facelift on Friday:

It’s a neat piece of community engagement that seemed to resonate with the locals almost immediately. Quotes from this DNAinfo piece included:

“It’s amped up. I like it!”
“I think it’s hysterical. It’s great. It’s very smart and clever.”

Another nice boost is that Mayor Bloomberg was scheduled to make an appearance Friday to help with the unveiling.

But most important is that Brady’s made a point to connect with its neighborhood and make itself a topic of conversation leading up to a potentially lucrative weekend. With media outlets looking for reporting angles prior to the game, it was a move almost sure to grab the free publicity that goes along with TV/newspaper/internet attention.

A twitter miss from McDonald’s

Posted by ianmara on Feb 2, 2012 in Bar Marketing | 0 comments

By now you’ve probably heard about the, um, difficulty the world’s biggest fast food brand had during a recent stab at targeting a new Twitter hashtag. We’re big proponents of bars and restaurants making use of hashtags whenever possible, but the recent McDonald’s fiasco illustrates that social media is done well only when it’s done right.

In case you missed the story, here’s a quick rundown. Last week McDonald’s unveiled a promoted hashtag it hoped would get Twitter users telling positive experiences at the restaurant. They called it #McDStories.

But instead of sharing warm and fuzzy memories of time spent enjoying Big Macs and McRibs, Twitter users began flooding the stream with negative tweets.

Read more..