Gapingvoid: How To Supercharge Your Event

Some amazing visuals to think about for your next presentation from the master cartoonist Hugh MacLeod (or @gapingvoid as he is known as on Twitter).

"Cartoons and visual communications are a great way to make an event awesome - before, during and after the event."

Going viral is just the icing on the cake

I've mentioned Coffee within Social Media, so now it's time for cake because this picture has just gone absolutely ballistic on the Twittesphere. 

 Chris Holmes resigned from his job with the Border Force so that he could concentrate on his cake making business. The thing is, he wrote the letter ON A CAKE. 

 Naturally, he posted a picture of it on his personal Facebook account - who wouldn't? Next thing he knows, it's become an internet sensation. I retweeted his brother-in-law's reaction earlier this morning, but since then it has been picked up by the national press and news sites around the world.


For me, it's a fantastic piece of creativity, but I think the real reason it went viral is because it's such an inspiring story. The idea makes you daydream about jacking in that nine-to-five to chase your dreams. And even if you don't, you still want to root for him because he did in a spectacularly clever and engaging way. 

One thing is for sure, I can't think of a better way to get your cake business off to such a flying start. We wish you every success Mr. Cake. (Oops, looks like that link is down - possibly due to the intense interest it's generated including over 1 million views on Reddit as I post.)

 Here's Chris's latest reaction to that err, problem...

This calls for cake, I say!

**Competition Time: tell me your outlook on the UK hotel sector!**

**Win a Gift Bottle of Laurent-Perrier Champagne**

I need your help for an upcoming presentation and rather than click on Google to find some answers, I was thinking wouldn't it be fun to crowdsource the answer from readers of MyKitchenSync. Let's face it, between us we must have SOME opinions on our industry. I'll collate the answers and post them on a later date, but in the meantime... over to you. Best of luck.

All you have to do is simply post a comment on the subject of:

 "In your opinion, what are the priorities for the hotel industry in the UK for the next 5 Years?"


There are four ways to get your answer in. Use any one of them, or all of them. Every answer is entered.

  • Comment below: Post your answer below (don't forget to check back after 23Apr to see if you won!)
  • Twitter: simply RT and reply your answer to @mykitchensync
  • LinkedIn: if your reading this within a group, please post in the comment box below.
  • Email your answer to competition@thomaskilroy.com (include your contact details.)

 Hurry... Competition Closes at Midnight (GMT) on Monday 22nd of April 2013.


Every answer received goes into the draw to be chosen at random on St. George's Day 23April13



**Bonus Prize The BEST ANSWER will: 
Win a Limited Edition bottle of Magnotta's Icewine** 

- this is a fabulous Dessert wine made in Canada from frozen grapes picked in snow-covered vineyards when the weather is -8 degrees C.



(You MUST be over 18 and resident in the UK and Ireland to win.)

Travelodge CEO recently interviewed: My 3 observations.

There's a great video interview in BigHospitality with Chief Executive Grant Hearn about how Travelodge plans to put some turbulent times behind them following a recent debt restructure. You can read the article and view the video in full by clicking here.
Travelodge CEO Grant Hearn has king-size plans for the chain

I appreciate it's a business focused interview aimed at the hospitality sector, but here are my three main observations on that particular interview:

  • Mr. Hearn mentions Premier Inn within the first minute 22 seconds of beginning his interview and goes on to discuss the focus that exists on that rivalry. 
There is a focus on that rivalry, but I suspect none more so than in his own Boardroom. And that's fine behind closed doors, but publicly you have to wonder why is the Travelodge CEO giving so much oxygen to his rival's brand? As a potential customer, I am reading an article about Travelodge, given by the Travelodge CEO and guess what? Premier Inn gets a mention even in the headline. That's gotta hurt.

  • He goes on to state that Food and Drink sales are not central to the business plan as they represent "only about £30m" in revenues out of £400m in total. In a nutshell he says; "What's important about food and drink to me is actually... selling rooms." 
Again, as a potential customer, it leaves me wondering how good the food offer actually is if it doesn't appear a priority for the top man in the job? Or to look at it another way, is that kind of statement going to motivate all those bartenders, service staff and chefs on payroll now required to raise their game if Travelodge are to compete with 'those other guys'?

  • There was mention of a new bedroom design. I had to play it a couple of times to catch it, but there it was in the last line of the article and referred to just once by Grant in the video interview itself. 
This may simply have been down to editing, but what a missed opportunity for the CEO (the main brand ambassador of the company) to talk more about these exciting new changes within Travelodge and how they will benefit future customers. He could have then clearly articulated the company's renewed focus on great food, drinks and service from the fantastic people working within the group. 

Of course, Mr. Hearn did say all those things. But, to paraphrase the old Morecambe & Wise gag, not necessarily in the right order. I guess he forgot to take off his CEO Strategy hat and put on his Brand PR hat for a few minutes. 

 Within the boardroom, it is perfectly acceptable to talk about product, offer, ROI, strategy and even Premier Inn. In public however, surely the soundbites should be about customer innovation, service excellence, the brand experience and team spirit. Travelodge staff deserve to hear it from leadership, their competitors should start to fear it and most importantly their customers really need to believe it.
Getting out of the Boardroom to focus on bedrooms.

 As it happens The Telegraph made a much better job of selling the virtues of that new room design with those impressive king-sized beds. I urge you to read it here to get the full picture of Travelodge's business roadmap ahead. It does sound exciting.

 I wish Grant Hearn and all the team at Travelodge every success in rolling out this new phase. The financial restructure was a risky piece of business that seems to have been pulled off successfully. This should give the group a sure footing during these continued turbulent months and years ahead.

Remembering Lawrence Montagu OBE: Shaping lives by shaping minds

Having only just read of the terribly sad news though Facebook, I can’t help reflecting on the death of my former School Principal Lawrence Montagu O.B.E. after a long battle against cancer.
My former Headteacher Lawrence Montagu who died last Friday
He was such a pivotal character during my formative years and I feel particularly melancholic at the thought that here was a man whose time among us concluded far too soon.

Thinking back, it was during the second week of October in 1984 when the coach, on its final leg from Birmingham, pulled into Gloucester bus station completing an exhausting 23-hour journey from Galway City in the west of Ireland. For myself, aged 13 at the time, and my two younger brothers, this was a far more seminal journey than we could have imagined as we left behind our school-friends, neighbours and relatives to start our new life in England. Dad was already there to meet us off the bus and quickly transferred our suitcases (we were allowed two each) into a waiting taxi before heading straight out to St. Peter’s High School on the Stroud Road to meet with the new Principal and get signed up at our new school. 

Despite being worn out from the trip, we were ushered in and instantly made to feel at home due to the tremendously warm and friendly welcome we received from Mr. Montagu who was only six or eight weeks into his new job at the time. Despite the formalities, he was happy to have a little banter with Mum who explained that all three siblings were left-handed and the Irish term for it was ciotóg (pronounced kith-ogue).

Two things I distinctly remember about Mr. Montagu in that first encounter; one was his youth and the other was his accent. My previous Headteacher (Seamus Cullinane at the Athenry Vocational School) was in his sixties (quite ancient when you’re twelve years old), so to see this dynamic thirty-something at the head of such a big school really made quite an impression on me. It was clear that age was not a prerequisite for leadership and it spurred me on to be as ambitious as I dared to be.

As for his Liverpudlian accent, I found it both disarming and intriguing. Having just arrived from the so-called fields of Athenry, (and I was as green as the song title suggests) it was the first time I met someone with such a distinctive English accent that you could actually pinpoint their origin. I have since developed a deep appreciation for the myriad of accents found here in the UK and find myself imitating them during lighter moments or especially when I am daydreaming about one thing or another. 
08Jun04: Catching up on latest news, Larry Montagu always made time for his alumni.
During my school years, I was lucky to discover my passion for cooking early on and concentrated on becoming the best chef and patissier I could be after I finished my ‘O’ levels. Somehow it also seemed natural to pop in every so often if I was passing to see Larry as I came to know him in later years and give him an update. He would delight in hearing about my travels to Bermuda and of opening a business in Kathmandu. When I introduced him to my wife on one chance visit in 2004, he organised a pot of tea and cancelled a budgeting meeting he was due to attend at the town hall. It was this generosity of goodwill that I came to admire in him most, especially when I think of the pressure he was under in running one of the UK's top comprehensive schools. 

I was delighted for Larry when I heard he had been awarded an O.B.E. for services to education - it certainly came was no surprise as he really did deserve the accolade. In a display of sincere humility about his achievement he would joke about the letters possible standing for "Other Bugger's Efforts". Again, his self-effacing leadership style was to deflect that spotlight of achievement onto the people around him upon whose shoulders he stood.

All was not well though when he told me how he was forced into a leave of absence in order to be treated after doctors discovered he had developed Prostate Cancer. A major bout of chemotherapy and sheer willpower put it in remission and allowed him to return to work. Sadly however the cancer returned more aggressively than before and had visibly affected his appearance and health on my last visit to see him in July of 2012. He was upbeat despite, as he put it himself, being given fewer than five years to live by his consultant at that stage.

During that final chat with him, I found a man resigned to the ravages of his own mortality and taking each day as it came, knowing there weren’t many left. The fact that he devoted every one of them to the well being of St. Peter's school community is truly a remarkable and noble act of human compassion that will forever remain his legacy. 

 I understand he was due to retire at the end of this academic year, but it seems someone up there had other plans and Larry was sadly taken from us this gone weekend. My thoughts go out to his family, colleagues and pupils who, like me, will find it difficult to understand why such sad things are meant to be.

There is no doubt that Lawrence Montagu had a profoundly positive influence on shaping the careers of dozens of teaching staff and shaping the lives of many, many thousands of schoolchildren lucky enough to attend St. Peter’s High School over the last two generations. You only have to to read this tribute here and the comments posted from past pupils on this story here to see what a profound effect he had on the lives of the people he touched.

Mr. Montagu will be sadly missed by us all. Me especially.

Rest in Peace Sir.

Mopping up after your competitor's mistake.

Years ago in the early 90's, at the height of my parents' nightclub success, I watched their business continue to flourish despite a distinct lack of re-investment on their part together with the growing challenge of some swanky new clubs opening in the town of Bedford around that time. To my mind, it just seemed to defy logic.

As he mopped the floor after one particularly busy weekend, I put the question to my Dad; "How come the 'Irish Club' still packs them in every week, while all these new clubs with their million-pound investments and top DJs seem to fizzle out after only a few months and we get all our regulars back?"

He took a break from mopping the floor for a minute and gave me a terrific insight into how any business should assess their customer proposition.

"Here's how I look at it," he said, "a fella leaves the house on a Saturday night and he has £35 to spend. It costs £3.50 for the taxi into town and he keeps £4.50 aside for the ride home. He'll want a bit of grub to eat later on too, so he'll set aside another £3 for that. So that's £11 on food and taxis which leaves him with £24 to spend on drink.
He meets the lads in the pub and a pint costs £2.50, so he either sticks to buying his own or buys a round for his four mates and altogether spends between £12 and £14 before heading for the nightclub."

"Now our friend has a choice... does he choose the flashy new club where it's one entry price before 11pm and a higher one after (but free for ladies before midnight, and a different price after that again). "

"And even if he does choose to go in there with the lads, once he gets to the bar - with a tenner left in his pocket at this stage - he discovers the drinks are one price before 11:30pm but suddenly go up afterwards. So at any given time, this lad doesn't know for certain what he can get for his £10. It also means every round will be a different price for each of those fellas because of these so-called offers. And with all that investment, you can be sure it ain't cheap!"

"Or... he can come to our door and if he's a member come in for free (EVERYONE was a member back then). Once he's in, he knows that every drink whether it's a pint, a bottle of beer, a shot, a short and or an alcopop is £2 all night. So that guy with the tenner in his pocket can confidently walk up to the bar and buy a round for himself and his 4 mates without having to worry about looking an eejit or tapping into that burger money he's saving for later on."

As my Dad went back to mopping the floor, I realised that all the 'smart money' being poured into these new nightclub ventures was being wasted as long as they continued focusing on the wrong aspect of their customer experience. It didn't matter about the flashy DJs, state-of-the-art lighting systems or fantastic mixologists, who generally pull pints in Bedford, if all they REALLY have to offer is uncertainty.

Customers need to know where they stand so they can make an informed decision. Without it, they'll just go and queue somewhere else.

Kred Summit: Four new tools to empower your Social Media reach

As promised, I wanted to revisit the Kred London Influencer Summit and just give you a brief overview of the new products that Andrew Grill announced that are due for roll out in the next few months.

 For me, it was the sheer volume of data that Kred has at it's disposal that blew me away. For example they have access straight through to the Twitter 'firehose' which means live access to over 10,000 posts a second and so far have collected over 150 Billion tweets. Across Twitter and Facebook Kred has an audience reach of 500 million people and have picked up over half a trillion conversations to date. So what can you do with that 'Big Data' in a marketing environment?

 Well, first up was Kred for Brands, a tool aimed at Brand Managers. Thankfully they've produced a slick little video on the topic, but basically this sums up the application best:
It helps identify and engage key influencers on Twitter and Facebook to create successful word of mouth campaigns: it filters lists of influencers based on interest, network, connections, for brands to engage with the most effective brand advocates and community leaders, learn about them and activate their communities and increase social media ROI (Return on Investment). 


Next on the roll call was KredNet which was unveiled as a tool for creating what could be described as a 'pop-up' network for a specific event, timescale or company project. Again, because of Kred's access to the social platforms, it is a way of engaging with your key influencers or, if you're a company, you might want to find out who are the people in your organisation who are most engaged with the outside world on Social media channels.

 Then we came to what I felt was the most astounding product; the Social Simulator. Since Kred has access to all of the tweets on record, they can load up a particular conversation that happened around an event, almost like putting photos into a slide show. You then replay them in a classroom environment to learn form that experience. I can really see this coming into it's own as a training tool to demonstrate in a hand-on way how to use social media within a business setting. The example Andrew gave was a shop running out of milk. The simulator loads up all the tweets that happened around that event and you start to play them out. At any time, you can pause the simulator and ask participants what they would tweet next. And since it is a closed environment, they can tweet without it going public to see what the consequences might be. A terrifically useful training tool for any kind of organisation that wants to empower its workforce in engaging on social media and social business channels.

 Kred for CRM. The first thing you might want to know is what is CRM? Put simply, it's Customer Relationship Management. Beyond that it's the ability to leverage your customer relationships - and the interactions they have with others - to increase your brand's influence and ultimately lead to higher sales and visibility. This is taking the marketer's role to the next level in today's environment and is worth following up, if only to understand what is now possible as a result of all this big data that exists.

Domain Names. The final item on the agenda was a few new 'top level' domain names being unveiled which will be rolled out later in the year. Kred bid for and won the rights to distribute .kred, .best and .ceo. Personally, I like the .best err the best. If you get in quick I can imagine service roles being snapped up straightaway. For example if you're a piano tuner, wouldn't it be cool to own the website www.pianotuner.best. Or in my case I think www.hospitalityspeaker.best would work... come to think of it, save that one for me Andrew. Thanks.

 If you're interested in this kind of social media stuff , then here's the full video of Andrew's presentation. It is worth a watch just to see how deeply integrated this has become. But one thing's for sure, it's not going away.

Apple's Latest Acquisition Puts Them Inside the Building

Mitch Joel writing for the Harvard Business Review highlights a little-known story that Apple just bought a small start-up last week for $20M called wifiSLAM. Basically they provide GPS for indoors and it is thought this will help Apple to augment the shopping experience in or near Apple Stores (initially) as you walk around the Mall.

 The interesting thing here is that we as consumers, are willing to share our most private data with stores and brands that we wouldn't want shared with security firms or government agencies.
"Internet Retailer reported: "80% of smartphone owners want more mobile-optimized product information while they're shopping in stores, finds 'The Shopping Experience in a Smartphone World,' a study conducted by ad agency Moosylvania."
And what that might look like:
"This aisle by aisle, real-time ability to flip offers, while getting a better understanding of how foot traffic flows, where consumers stop and engage is going to affect everything from pricing to shelf space to how end-cap placements are sold."
Apple might suck at Social Media, but they're at the leading edge of Social Business.

Social climbing at the Influencer Summit

Exchanging ideas with CEO of Kred, Andrew Grill, Karen Fewell, Tania Duarte & Mark Batchelor
Another trip to London and another epic evening in great company at one of London’s iconic hotels. This time it was The Mayfair Hotel for a very exclusive invitation-only event in the company of some of the most influential movers and shakers in the world of Social Media and Social Business (Yes, there is a difference.) You’d also be right in wondering what the heck I was doing there...? Looking around the room, I had to wonder myself now and then, but that’s part of the fun; It’s a brave new world and I want to be at the frontier. 

To understand what it's all about, I’d better just explain to those unfamiliar with this stuff, that on that thing we call the internet there are a couple of tools (think of them as websites that you sign into) for measuring how much ‘influence’ one has in their social groups online. The two major players in this arena are Klout and Kred. (I like that they begin with ‘K’ - it is a very influential letter you know.). Klout was first, but Kred is better due to it's transparency. Since it was the 'Kred London Influencer Summit' that I was attending, I guess you can figure out my allegiance at this stage. But how did I get invited in the first place?

Attending a party a few weeks ago, I was chatting with Jeremy Waite (Social Strategist for Adobe - Get Well Soon Jeremy!), when we were interrupted briefly by the very dynamic entrepreneur Andrew Grill who went on to explain why he had a free iPad under his arm courtesy of EE. (It’s a good story by the way and worth a read here.) On my way home I saw that he had connected with me on Twitter, which was very generous and that was when I realised he was the CEO of Kred. Wow. Since then, we’ve had a few exchanges on the philosophy of ‘Social Business’ and probably the reason why I found myself on this prestigious guest list tonight.

To put Andrew Grill and Kred into some sort of perspective, I learned tonight that they have
200 million subscribers with a potential audience reach of 500 million people on Twitter and Facebook. That’s a lot of influence right there.

Now before you get all hung up on the flaws and challenges of influence being benchmarked as a number, you have to remember that it is only relevant within your zone or sphere of influence. Justin Bieber will have massive influence in your life if you happen to be a hyperactive screaming ‘tweener, but he will have no influence whatsoever in the world of offshore oil exploration as an example. At least online that is. Furthermore, he also has a very low score in terms of ‘reaching out’, since he hardly replies to these hordes of marauding teenagers. So the bottom line is that your ‘influence’ can be very large when looked at through the niche audience that you might appeal to.

From a personal perspective, my twitter feed has about 375 400 followers made up of mostly Hospitality professionals, social media guys and some public speakers. So within the realms of talking and tweeting about hospitality and marketing, I could be described as a giant. Beyond that however, I am merely a footnote at the bottom of the page in comparison to the Stephen Fry’s and Jamie Oliver’s of this word who command huge influence over all sorts of people since they're exceptionally famous AND are generous enough to reply and engage with their respective audiences.

That said, I have found the ‘Social Media Set’ quite an interesting bunch due to the crossover nature of their medium. They operate in a place where IT, Marketing, Mathematics, Sales, Research, PR, Sociology, Psychology, Entrepreneurship and Communications all get together to drink from the same watering hole. But the one thing that brings us together is our love for humanity and that social interaction, even if it is with someone you haven't met personally.

I’ll write a little about the products and vision Andrew revealed tonight in another post, but I am honoured to have been invited to have a sneak peek at his new kind of future and wish all the team at Kred every success in the coming months with this hugely ambitious rollout.

You guys rock.

We're not looking for anyone too ambitious right now.

I couldn't help going over to shake hands with a senior Director from a rival Catering Company who I spotted in the crowd at the Savoy Hotel yesterday...
"You probably don't remember me, but you interviewed me for a job about three years ago."
"Don't tell me I didn't hire you."
"You didn't hire me."
"Who do you work for now?"
"Eh, the chap about to give the lecture. Just celebrated three years with BaxterStorey last Friday." 

 I'll never forget his summing up of me in that interview:
"Thomas, I can see you are so ambitious, that whatever I do offer you, you'll be banging on my office door within eight months demanding a newer bigger  project."
And...?

Savoy Lecture: Our country needs us to be strong

What a great evening at The Savoy Hotel last night. As expected the service was impeccable, the food delicious (Oreo Cheesecake, who knew?) and the conversation very stimulating. After checking in coats and checking out some familiar names, we were ushered into the imposing ballroom. Recently refurbished, it was set out theatre-style with regimented rows of chairs facing one solitary lectern that loomed over them from the stage above, rather like a general facing his troops.

Naturally the BaxterStorey clan congregated and welcomed one another in from the bitter cold. As we chatted we caught ourselves stealing a glance now and then across the room towards our Chairman who was sat quietly near the front collecting his thoughts. With the atmosphere building, there was definitely a swelling sense of pride in our group, but this was tempered with nervousness as we willed our man at the helm to go out there and show these people just why he commands such loyalty and respect from the 10,000 strong team in his organisation. 


As the people-watching continued, we took our seats…. “That’s Alastair’s Sales Director talking to him just now..” said one prominent CEO nearby in a whisper to his wide-eyed young companion. I won’t repeat what he said to her next, but let’s just call it professional envy. Let’s face it, if we’re not irritating our competitors in the sales arena, then we’re doing it wrong.
The Lectern looms large as Alastair takes a call before the Arena Savoy Lecture. 

Up first was Jan Matthews, Chairman of Arena, who called the distinguished gathering to order and made the brief introduction of our speaker for the evening. Etiquette over necessity I imagine, but it helps to set the tone. Finally, as his name was called out, Alastair rose to his feet to thunderous applause and gingerly climbed the few steps onto the stage. His big moment was upon him and in that rich Aberdonian accent which we have come to appreciate, he opened with his trademark quip “I love this business”. And boy does he mean it when he says that phrase.

Now you might recall in my previous piece that I was looking forward to seeing 'how' he delivered almost as much as 'what' he delivered and I found his presentation to be a masterclass in remaining calm and assured despite the overwhelming nature of the occasion. Yes he did appear slightly flushed which I put down to the humility in his character (personally, I’d be beetroot red by now), but his composure quickly took shape and within a couple of minutes we found ourselves being invited into and challenged by his vision for the future of our industry. 

It’s easy to dwell on the meteoric rise and astronomical success of WSH Ltd’s track record over the last ten years, but instead he focused on a couple of proposals, or challenges perhaps, that he put to his audience of “friends, colleagues and competitors”. Each was a rallying call, not only to this esteemed audience, but to the wider industry as a whole:

  • He urged us to support our farmers and artisans through ethical procurement and a sustainable supply chain, even if it means paying more. And yes, he referred to the culprits of the recent horsemeat scandal as ‘fraudsters’. 
  • Given the mammoth contribution, totalling 8.5% of annual GDP, of our industry as a whole (from airlines to public sector to contract catering) we should command much more bargaining power in the political arena. Supporting the BHA will help achieve this rather than reinventing the wheel. 
  • He laid bare his "burning desire" to make Front of House service a more attractive proposition to our young talent - in the same way Chefs have done with cooking.
Janie Stamford at the Caterer and Hotelkeeper has picked up these points in more detail here.


In conclusion to a very thought-provoking and inspirational message, he left us with these impassioned words:
“Our country NEEDS us to be strong. 
NEEDS us to be ambitious. 
NEEDS us to be good employers. 
To be great trainers. 
To search for excellence. 
To care about our farmers and our producers. 
If we can rally around this concept, we can work together to articulate the many concepts that will make it a reality. 
As business leaders, you know that the initiative can only come from us.”
Long after the applause had died down, the discussion continued in the bar and over a sumptuous dinner afterwards. At one point I found myself reflecting on those words and I couldn’t help but notice the flawless service of our meal in that great room at The Savoy. The professionalism of the young staff serving at our table simply exemplified the very thing that Alastair was trying to articulate in his lecture. I believe his vision for the future of service was present in that room last night. And it will be tonight. And tomorrow night, whomever the guests might be. Getting school children, young people and Ministers to understand that is where the real work lays ahead. And that’s a journey full of opportunity. 

Congratulations Alastair on a truly inspiring lecture, thank you Arena for a memorable event, and thank you to The Savoy Hotel for reminding us of why we got into Hospitality in the first place. I’m sure my colleagues who attended last night will agree..we really do love this business.


For a fantastic Twitter timeline of events as they unfolded, you can read this Storify article put together by @DigitalBlonde:

Dinner and a Storey at The Savoy...


A quick post on my way into London for this year’s Savoy Lecture and dinner hosted by Arena, the professional network as I am gently getting more excited about what’s to come. Not so much for the food (which will be epic, as ever), or the stellar company (again, a veritable Who’s Who of the catering industry judging by the guest list here in my hand), but for the main event. I’m really excited by the prospect of listening to the keynote speech being delivered by Alastair Storey who happens to be Chairman of the company I work for.

No doubt, he will have some forthright views and interesting perspectives, but I will also be watching intently to see how he delivers that speech. Will it be a relaxed performance? Has he rehearsed and will it show? Will it be tailored to this audience? How will people react to his message? Will he have a call for action from such a platform? I guess what I am hoping to see is Alastair Storey demonstrating in stark fashion what it is that has made him one of our industry’s biggest stalwarts. To have reached the very pinnacle of the sector as he has, takes a unique star quality and that is something what is worth being present for.

Check in later to find out how the evening went, what the most powerful man in Hospitality had to say and what this might mean for the future of our industry. 

 Meanwhile, dinner at The Savoy awaits….

Playing the loyalty card with every acquisition.


There was a time when big was beautiful. When economies of scale for the mammoth supermarkets pushed more product out to more depots and into ever expanding trolleys in what became known as the 'space race' to become your one-stop-shop for everything. Soon this was mirrored by homogeneous coffee brands, casual dining chains and even monotone bed factories. While it does mean fewer rollout costs, staff and admin headaches, it also means fewer deviations from the plan. And eventually that has lead us all down a dark cul-de-sac of rancorous disapproval.

During all this empire building, the struggling independent operators lamented the lack of support from government, media and us the general public as we upped sticks and flocked to our new cathedrals of cheap. A few stayed, remaining loyal despite the treehugger label, but not enough to arrest the demise of our greengrocer, butcher and baker once so prominent on the high street. The holy trinity of shopping days gone by.

 Recently however the trade winds have changed tack across the retail landscape. As high streets dwindled to resmble back streets, we found ourselves forced to forage further afield. It was a novelty at first, but everyone piled on and now it's just a bunfight at the till. And with petrol prices skyrocketing, the trip out of town for the weekly shop has lost it's appeal as well as any potential savings on that 2-for-1 voucher.


One of many documentaries on how suppliers are treated by supermarkets.
As consumers we read stories of how some of our favourite brands weren't paying their taxes fairly. Or were forcing farmers to dump veg that was the wrong shape. (One onion grower who frequented our old pub in Bedfordshire said he ploughed 3 tonnes back into the ground.) Or paying dairy farmers less than cost price for their milk. Every month there seemed to be another story of supermarket dominance until finally we got to Horsemeat, the daddy of all the scandals. Supermarkets had put so much effort into winning the race to the bottom, they finally scratched the barrel floor. Had we at last had a glimpse of the fat little man behind the curtain who convinced us he was Great and Powerful?


Tom & Barbara brought us self-sufficiency
Now add in a never-ending spate of unpredictable weather, changing work patterns and a grazing culture of dining out to see why some of those profit bubbles are bursting. Tired of jostling in the aisle, we have finally embraced the one-click browser experience and forced retailers to come to us instead of trundling out with our list and a bag for life. Younger shoppers are buying less albeit more frequently, baby boomers are rediscovering the Good Life and their joy of allotments (Fifty Sheds of Grey?), while pensioners conjure up that post-war spirit which has led to such popular TV shows as Super Scrimpers and Rip Off Britain. Heck, even my own work colleague Ian made the national press by shunning supermarkets for a year. Good on him, we cheer.
35 years later, it's back into fashion.
So where is all this heading? Well you could be forgiven for thinking the independent operators are finally on the up and up. The smart ones are, to be sure. However multinationals didn't get to be multinationals without adapting to market forces and consequently are very quick to learn, and emulate. This I believe is where the battle is morphing into something more deviant. The Big Four may have steamrolled their way across the shopping landscape, but they have made shedloads of cash along the way and now it's time to use that cash pile to beat the independent's at their own game.

 Ever so stealthily, supermarkets (as well as fast food brands and PubCos) are moving into new markets in ways they haven't done before. Who could have imagined Tesco becoming a silent partner in an artisan coffee chain such as Harris + Hoole? Or as I mentioned in my previous posts here and here, buying out a standalone restaurant chain like Giraffe to install into larger stores? Or Sainsbury's going into the high street takeaway business? Or that king of consistency, McDonald's varying their decor and hamburger prices according to region?

 These clandestine measures are more of a threat to independent operators than many realise because they are taking them on at their own game. The smaller operators could always differentiate themselves due mostly to some very niche targeted marketing, bags of energy, a fanatical focus on customer, staff and supplier relationships and of course by offering the one thing the big nationals couldn't replicate up to now, that personal touch.

 But with the big conglomerates hiding behind smaller outfits which are tightly integrated into their local community, they will undoubtedly seduce people into believing the new brand cares about us more than the old brand did. I saw this very clearly demonstrated by the 1600-outlet Mitchells and Butlers group when they relaunched the Kings Arms pub in Cardington (our nearest competitor some years ago) in a re-branding exercise that termed the General Manager as your new "village pub landlady". A hugely successful move at the time and a sign of things to come.

 Artisan traders can compete for sure, even if they don't have the safety net of astronomical hoards of cash to underpin their business model. But how are they going to tackle this newly evolving threat? I think this quote from Peter F. Drucker sums up that challenge very neatly:
“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth."
As long as our independent operators continue to relentlessly innovate in meeting their customers' needs and exceeding their expectations, the multinationals will find it takes more than a cheque book and pen to re-write that Customer Service Promise which up to now hasn't really been worth the paper it's written on.

Take three tablets...

Here's an iPad ad that screams "Wild!"... "Bright!"... "Together!"




Meanwhile on his commute home "...every evening, at exactly 6:07 District Manager Thomas M. Wilkes" does this on his Dell XPS...


 Or in meetings, this young hipster executive daydreams of escaping a world full of spreadsheets on his Microsoft Surface Pro...


Which lifestyle do you aspire to?

 Bonus: And can you guess which tablet has the biggest market share in unit sales?

A shot of St. Patrick's day humour...

I'm about the head out into the rain and drive across from Oxford to Potton on the Bedford/Cambridgeshire border to my Dad's pub The Red Lion in Potton to help out on this St. Patrick's eve. (Hey, could that be a new Clinton Card idea?) He's got a bit of music on and he might dish up a few sausage and chips later if a few quid is spent at the bar. 

 Anyone who has met my Dad, tells me he is one of the funniest pub landlords they have met. Personally, I'm kind of immune to a lot of his musings since I've grown up with the stress, hangovers, late nights, early starts, social sacrifices, rows, financial woes and general pointlessness of chatting to that lone regular in an otherwise empty pub as he sups pints all afternoon while talking sh!te until finally his hunger, his wife or his wallet interjects and gives him reason to go home. My Dad's favourite kind of customer as it happens.

Still, in the spirit of our Irish weekend, here are three classics from Tom Kilroy's 'funny moment' repertoire:
*Anouncement from the Bar...*
"A roll of money wrapped in an elastic band has been handed in at the bar." 
*Pub goes quiet*
"I repeat, a roll of money wrapped in an elastic band has been handed in at the bar."
 *People looking at each other wondering who lost a roll of money*
"Anyone who has lost a roll of money wrapped in an elastic band, please make your way to the bar where you can collect your elastic band."
When a fight broke out in the Gloucester Irish Club where Dad was the Steward back in the 80's, one of the committee members ran up the stairs and asked him to sort it out. The story goes that he jumped behind the curtain to hide, only to peak out with the immortal words
"Sort it? Jaysus, I come from a long line of cowards you know!"
When I was about 8 years old and standing behind the bar one afternoon while Dad had his dinner (we call it lunch in today's parlance) during the annual budget announcement on TV at the time. As soon as a customer came in (that same bloody regular!), I called up the stairs and Dad came down to serve him. Pouring the pint of Guinness, Dad broke the silence with the opening gambit of:
"Were you watching the budget? Ah now, it's gettin' outta hand. I see they're putting the price of food up by 10p a pint..."
Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all!

Let me leave you with this very funny video made by Neil and the lads at the Hop Inn Pub in Athenry. It coincided with the visit by President Obama to Ireland to celebrate his Irish roots... I love the queue of cars down the street patiently waiting for the filming to finish. How they think of them..