Guinness is to help bars and pubs to attract customers during the Six Nations tournament through a partnership with a mobile phone app.
For the second year running, the stout brand has teamed up with MatchPint which helps sports fans locate their nearest bar or pub showing the matches they want to watch.
The Guinness activity will provide an exclusive “buy one get one free” deal for consumes when they check into participating outlets during the rugby tournament which runs from February 6 to March 21.
The MatchPint app and website is used by 250,000 people each month, helping to drive traffic towards participating outlets. During the 2014 Six Nations, 49% of MatchPint users said the Guinness offer influenced their pub choice and, on average, users stayed in the pub for two hours 40 minutes, spending £18 following their free pint.
As an additional incentive to join the MatchPint scheme, Guinness is also offering a reduced annual subscription fee of £100 for the first year.
Guinness, part of Diageo, sees the Six Nations Championship as a “huge” opportunity, with 12% of men watching it in a pub, according to a Millward Brown Tracker study. It also found 38% of rugby fans watched the game at home.
Diageo estimates that getting consumers who normally opt to drink at home to watch one more game in outlets through the Guinness and MatchPint offer has the potential to drive £36.8million GSV for the GB on-trade.
A new Guinness Six Nations visibility kit will be supplied to 6,000 outlets where rugby is a popular. Worth £70, it includes visibility items to engage consumers from the door to the point of purchase.
Guinness has also created an inflatable branded rugby ball that can be secured for internal or external visibility and a special rugby ball surround and tap handle to dress the beer’s “gate” font.
Katerina Podtserkovskaya, head of Guinness activation in the on-trade, said: “At Guinness, we are dedicated to helping publicans make the most of top events on the sporting calendar, with the Six Nations being a key focus.
“It’s fantastic to see that last year’s partnership with MatchPint has had such positive results and we are excited to be working with them again.
“Guinness has 6.5million loyal consumers that are highly valuable to outlets during rugby season because the brand’s drinkers are, generally, interested in rugby and so are more likely to visit the on-trade to watch a game.
“They also visit the pub more frequently than other beer drinkers and spend more on food and drink per occasion than the average beer drinker. This creates a huge opportunity to use the Six Nations to encourage consumers to watch the matches in outlets, driving rate of sale and pints in hand.”
There are 13.1million rugby fans in the UK and 62% of licensees consider rugby events to be a key driver of footfall and dwell time in their outlets.
