A National PR Campaign for Thwaites

Daniel Thwaites is a major independent family brewer. Founded in 1807, and based in Blackburn, Thwaites has a rich heritage, a sizeable estate of more than 350 pubs and award-winning beers including Wainwright, Lancaster Bomber and Nutty Black.

Thwaites also supplies a full range of drinks to many independently owned pubs, clubs and restaurants and a wide range of bottled beers to most major supermarkets.

Thwaites appointed Bell Pottinger North to deliver a holistic media relations and communications campaign promoting the beers, raising the industry profile of the company and its directors, supporting and promoting the pubs, supporting Thwaites Wainwright's sponsorship of Lancashire County Cricket Club and managing the communications around the planned relocation of the brewery.

Approach

One of the key priorities for Thwaites is capturing the hearts and minds of its customers and raising their profile within the industry. Bell Pottinger North has undertaken a comprehensive industry media engagement programme including liaison with key journalists, a regular feed of positive news release, placement of key features and interview pieces focusing on the senior team

We support the large pub estate publicising some of the best examples of good practice and some of the quirkier stories - from Jip the dog who leaps up to collect the darts out of the dart board for customers, to the new beer flavoured sausages.

It is also important to build on good local relations and we have worked alongside the local MP, regional media and key stakeholders to bring Thwaites closer to its local community. Thwaites supports local charitable causes and we have showcased this work and launched an engagement programme to keep local people informed about the planned relocation of the brewery.

The Thwaites Shire Horses are a very important part of the company's heritage and remain at the heart of the business. Their busy programme of public engagements has delivered excellent positive coverage for the company and has supported Thwaites' commitment to the local community.

And we're actively promoting Thwaites as a pub company of choice to support the recruitment of quality licensees through a new tenancy agreement and use of the industry and careers media.

Thwaites Wainwright is the main sponsor of Lancashire County Cricket Club and it is important to support that through a proactive programme of PR.  To launch the season the LCC players visited The Star brewery and brewed their own beer attracting significant media coverage. We maximised all the media opportunities around the shirt launch and set up a Sunday Mirror exclusive interview with England star Jimmy Anderson in advance of the international season delivering Thwaites unparalleled national coverage. We also ran a competition for local cricket teams to win a chance of a lifetime to train with the professionals under former England coach Peter Moores. This again attracted widespread media coverage including TV, broadcast, web and print media.

The results

The success of the Thwaites campaign can be measured in a number of different ways. Sales of Wainwright have soared and it is now the best selling in its golden ale category and has listings in all the major supermarkets.

We regularly achieve national, trade and extensive regional coverage. Just one news story in July generated £44K of regional press coverage.

We've helped to successfully launch new beers including Old Dan which is now on sale in Morrisons, and Indus IPA - a successful new India Pale ale in a highly competitive category, and we've raised the profile of the new in post Chief Operating Executive and the team of directors.

We've also helped Thwaites to a record number of award wins in 2011 for the company, the brands and the pubs.