Americans Discovering the Joy of a Pint of Beer

The article signs off with this lovely quote from the Irish writer James Joyce, who wrote, the sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue, which is lovely. Although, as we say in Europe, 568 milliliters. Nigel, it's great to see you. How you doing?

Very well, thank you. Apart from the rain and the weather, but that will improve over time.

Hey, I was thinking about you the weekend I was reading the Economist magazine of my favorite reads that I've got. And I saw this article which talks about how the Americans are discovering the joy of a true pint of beer. Now, this is written from an English point of view, so from our side of the pond, you and I would call this a pint of beer. It's not what it's called in the US is it? It's called a 19 ounce or as they put it in the Economist, a stovepipe. And it tells a story about how larger cans, in this case a 19.2, 19.2 ounce can of beer is now becoming a really popular choice and the popularity has soared over the last few years. So I wanted to bring that and say, so that's a really interesting thing. This is a trend in the market. Let's talk about how that might impact the experience of convenience store. Someone in the middle. So maybe you can give us an outline about what might be happening, what might be driving this experience.

It's a really interesting thing when you look at it through that customer experience lens because you write the end customer in that article. It is a little bit about the pint, but it's also about the convenience stores in America. And there's a convenience store literally on every corner. I think 711 talked quite publicly about they could get to something like 90% of all US households within the space of five minutes. It's a ridiculous statistic.

Yeah.

So there's convenience stores everywhere and it's the convenience that was a really thing that took my eye in the article. When you look at it through the customer experience lens.

Yeah.

That clearly shoppers are doing something different and they're purchasing bigger cans of craft beers and they think about the experience that they're having. When are they going to drink that product? And I was putting my customer experience hat on thinking, how do you get that message out to every single convenience store that the consumer's doing something different.

Yeah.

I think Andrew Maguire in the article talked about consumers buying a six pack of beer and a pint can. And well, actually, how do you put those items in the basket together? How can you promote them Together there's lots of things it starts to get you curiosity thinking about in that space. The biggest one for me was why would consumers be doing that in the first place? Can you explain why? So when we think about our clicks analogy one of the season days about curiosity, I read through the article and the amount of curiosity that was started to spin in my mind about I wonder why. I wonder why that would be the case. That's the part I think if you're a customer experience team, how could you look at the article or any article in that space and get the curiosity really starting to spin.

Yeah.

When you start to think about why is that actually happening in the first place?

Let's try and break some of this down just for my and I'm just going to make some guesses about this because we don't have access to the research on this and we don't really know what's going on. But so what they're doing is that they're saying a larger can is more popular and you maybe the clue is the fact that it's a convenience store. People want the convenience of what not going to the fridge more often. But it could be.

I mean there's two things that spark in my mind about curiosity when you think about a larger can and this could be true in any category. A larger can, a larger vessel, a larger amount of purchases. Think about how you and I behave and I think every other consumer on this planet, if I buy more, do you expect a better deal or a worse deal? Per can. Gotta be a better deal.

Gotta be a better deal.

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So the consumer's already getting something by buying, buying a bigger can than a smaller can to get a slightly better deal. I think that's good. The other thing I know about the US convenience marketplace, you walk into a convenience store anywhere in America and you started to see this in England and in Europe increasingly. So that the mechanic that generally gets used in a convenience store is the 2, 4. So if you buy two of these, you get a deal. You go to the uk, go to something like Boots, their Christmas offer, buy three for the price of two or the sandwich offer.

You know, it's everywhere.

It's a mechanic that the convenience mission, you're buying one, two, maybe three items so that the promotional mechanic is all aimed at that particular mission. And I think that's the other thing that goes off in that space. You now think about putting a, I think that the, the article talks about a 16 ounce can or a 19 ounce can or a 12 ounce can. It's, it's just how different cultures talk about the sizes. In, in the UK we tend to use half pint or a pint. In Europe it might be 2, 6, 8 mil, 330 mil, 300 mil. It's just a cultural difference in how they measure the product. But the essence is if you're going to put a 12 ounce can on a shelf, one single can on a shelf, or you put a 16 ounce can or a 19 ounce can, the only thing you're changing is the height of the shelf.

Yes, that's really true. And in fact let's try and break this down economically. I'm just going to come this from the naive view of someone who doesn't know the beard trait. But I'm guessing there are some excellent reasons for doing this for the, for the beer brand because you know you're using a little bit more aluminum, I'm guessing to make the can larger and there's more ingredients in there, but the cost of shipping are roughly the same and the cost of the transactions and so on. So that's a win. So it's a small marginal cost but for a better perceived value for the consumer who is pretty cash strapped at the moment because this plays into our economic times, right, the two for one. And then also the advantages is that a taller can shows off the Logo better on the, on the shelf.

There's a huge amount in there. I mean, environmentally, you're right. Just in the production costs alone to put a little bit more extra liquid into a slightly bigger can.

Yeah.

You're not actually selling two smaller cans with a crown at the top and at the base of the bottom. It's the magical holy grail for me of a win, win, win. It's something that works for the consumer, it's something that works for the customer, and it's something that works for the brand owner.

Yeah, that's actually really. So let's bring this back to experience, because for me, I'm, I'm, you know, this is a trend that's going on. I'm always thinking about how does a brand owner hear about this? And then if it, you know, because if it's going on in one location, they're going, maybe this could work in a wider geography. Let's talk about how that could happen.

Well, I think there's two things that prompt in my mind. When you're a customer experience team or group and you see an article such as that, the first thing that springs to mind is if that's working in one customer, is that a trend that I need to share with the 99% of my rest of my customer base? If it's an insight that could deliver growth, why wouldn't I want to try and drive that across the rest of my customer base and tell the rest of my customers, this is a trend that we've seen and these are the things that you should be doing to be able to benefit from that trend? It helps the greater good.

Yeah.

The second thing that I think helps a customer experience team is it's always good to talk about these things when it's another example that you can relate to. And it's the idea of, I've seen them do that over there, but could I do that over here?

Yeah.

So if you imagine, I'll give you a little, very, very quick example, which is wonderful for a customer experience team when you're into that element of curiosity, which is one of the things we talk about a lot in the Clicks program, that how do you get the team to become curious? Imagine you were the McDonald's management team and you got brought in to take over Walmart or Asda. What would you do in that situation? You can almost imagine that coach of the McDonald's management team would say, hey, we're going to have preset menus, we're going to have lots of smaller stores. We're going to have drive throughs you. All of a sudden you start to see how this parallel world could give you clues on what you could do.

Yes.

In a very different environment. And in a small example, if you were to read that Economist article and you were a convenience snacks business or you were a confectionary business, or you were a cosmetics business, there will be some curiosity that you apply to the article that will give you an element of growth that you can get out of your category or your product brand. And that'd be one of the things that I encourage every, any customer experience team to be doing. Take that article just as we've done, explore it with the element of curiosity and see what ideas it allows you to be able to take out for your own business that you can apply. But the real magic in the article for me was that it worked for the consumer, it works for the customer, the convenience store owner, and it clearly works for the brand owner as well. And when you get all three working, that's just growth. That's a wonderful place to be.

It is. And I think you know from two, two guys that grew up in England like you and I, the, the fact that the, you know, that the pine size seems to be the right thing is I think interesting for us. Although what's interesting, it's great in the article they deny that and they say no, no, no, it's 19.2 ounces is a perfectly natural.

Is just, it's a good sized product to be able to drink. And if you think about why you would drink a pint, if you drink something let, let's say you drink a third of a pint or you drink a really, really small container. It's great to be able to taste something for the first time, to be able to test it. But if you find out you like it, it's a pint. Without going into too much of the details, it's just, it's a good amount of liquid to be able to really savor the taste, to get the aroma. It stays cold for just about the round right amount of time. It's a great way to be able to relax or to connect with a couple of, of your close friends. It's just anything in moderation in this life is good. Generally anything that's beyond moderation is, is generally bad. But it's like it's a good place to be.

It's, it's a little bit more consumer experience than improvement. And I think, I think the article signs off with this lovely quote from the Irish writer James Joyce, who wrote the Sacred Pint alone can unbind the tongue, which is lovely. Although, as we say in Europe, 568 milliliters, it's just, just a different the.

The real part for me was that you tell more and more customers that story so they can jump onto the back of the opportunity that's coming about.

I love it.

Well, you put the customer experience lens on. That's where the big difference is.

Thanks for something that's really nice. So I don't know what we'll do. We'll pick some more of these articles on that. But it's really nice to think about this through the lens of experience, isn't it? What does that mean for the retailer and the convenience store and the manufacturer? Nigel, thanks for joining me on today to talk about this stuff.

You're very welcome.