BRAND

STRATEGY

Supporting Brakspear Brewery to launch a brand-new pub, restaurant, and hotel brand.

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Staff Retention Increase

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Profit Growth

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Ongoing Support

A person sitting at a desk wearing a long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans.

Overview

A Bit of a Background on Brakspear

Brakspear operates over 120 businesses, ranging from local pubs to upscale dining establishments. Additionally, the brewery manages 16 pubs, restaurants, and hotels, each providing a consistently premium experience. However, before this project, these businesses lacked a cohesive brand identity.

Consequently, it was challenging to promote the managed houses collectively, such as suggesting a Cotswolds hotel to a regular of a Henley-On-Thames pub.

There were also missed opportunities in employee retention. With a unified brand, career progression paths become clearer, helping to retain motivated staff keen on career development. Moreover, a cohesive brand simplifies conveying business purpose and values, which is particularly important to Millennial and Gen Z employees, as statistics indicate.

Objectives for the project

Establish a fresh premium brand for Brakspear’s managed properties, complete with a unique mission and core values.
Formulate a plan to promote this new brand to customers, focusing on cross-promoting the pubs, restaurants, and hotels within the estate.
Create an internal communication strategy to showcase career growth opportunities within the company, aiming to lower employee turnover rates

Key Results:

Boosted staff retention and employee satisfaction. Increased sales, resulting in higher profits.

How did we do this?

01 Define the Company’s Core Identity:

We gathered all key stakeholders for a series of workshops aimed at uncovering the company’s vision and core values.

03 Establish Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives

Recognising the importance of community engagement, we created the Brakspear Charitable Trust with two main objectives:
– Support the conservation of Britain’s bees, beginning with the installation of beehives in pub gardens.- Enhance the health and well-being of staff, patrons, and local communities.

05 Create Comprehensive Brand Guidelines

To ensure brand distinction and consistency, we developed detailed brand guidelines. These included directives on logo usage, colour schemes, and brand voice, setting the brand apart in the competitive hospitality market.

07 Maintain Ongoing Communication

We launched ‘Around the Houses,’ a monthly e-newsletter aimed at keeping staff informed about developments across the estate. The newsletter had a light, positive tone, sharing updates on team incentives, rewards, and plans for staff gatherings.

02 Choose a Brand Name

Collaborating with a design agency, we reviewed various brand names and logos. We ultimately selected ‘Honeycomb Houses,’ a nod to Brakspear’s historical link to the bee, symbolised by Nicholas Breakspear, the first English Pope, who used a bee as his Papal symbol.

04 Develop an Operational Guide

Given Brakspear’s size as a family-run hospitality business, large-scale staff training was challenging. To address this, we introduced ‘Our House, Your Home,’ an operational guide designed to help staff align with the business philosophy quickly. The essence: treat guests as you would in your own home, ensuring a welcoming and comfortable atmosphere.

06 Hit the road with the new vision

Accompanying CEO Tom Davies, I participated in a series of roadshows to present our new vision to the entire company, clearly outlining its benefits. The response was overwhelmingly positive.

Get support on your branding

Are you looking to innovate or update your brand identity? Let us do all the work! Get in touch today.