National Homebrew Club Ireland

Hi home brewers,

I'm wondering if I might be able to enlist your help. I'm a student doing a paper for my strategic branding class and I'm basing it on McGargles Irish Craft Beers.

I'm trying to find out what people think of the brand, (Granny Mary, the family story etc.) and the products themselves.

If you have five minutes to spare, it would be awesome if you could take a short survey to help with my research. Here's the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YWS7PVZ

Thanks a million for your help and insights brewers,

An interested student.

No problem,  done

done.

All done, just need to watch the Likert scale options at the end. Usually a Likert scale will have an equal number of positive and negative options around a neutral midpoint, but there are too many positive statements at the moment, which will introduce a confounding bias when you come to do your stats (nerd alert  :))

i strongly agree

"an interested student"

no name, college, course, location aims and objectives of project? just "an interested student"

Otherwise its just a load of questions suitable as feedback by the brand itself,  if u are a real student and answer the above I might actually do it and pass it on to a lot of other people ...

Hi again, and thank you everyone for both taking the survey and the feedback.

I took a while to decide whether to write the interested student or my actual details, to be honest. This is my first time reaching out in such a way, so I'm learning. While the Internet is a great tool, I thought a certain level of caution might be necessary when posting to blogs and learned that brevity in requests more often than not results in a better response rate. Hence my final decision.

For the purposes of clarity; my name is Christine. I'm a student at Dundalk Institute of Technology and also from Dundalk. I decided to do the project on McGargles as a result of watching friends get into deep conversation about it in the pub. My subject is 'Strategic Brand Management'. McGargles decided to challenge industry norm when launching their brand and go for 'brand first, beer second.' The aim of the paper is to ascertain the impact of this decision. As a result, I am trying to determine the market's view of the brand and its products, from a brand essence point of view (as studied during classes). In addition, I intend to speak to the company itself, determine their aims for the brand, and compare. The approach of the company will also be discussed in relation to brand building theory and, if I do it properly, conclusions will be drawn.

I hope this serves to make me more human. You can find me on LinkedIn if you need more. https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=64202556&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile

Re the Likert scale, I see what you mean. I overlooked the necessity of neutrality in response. Excellent to have had that pointed out. I will ensure to note the error when writing.

Thank you again, great feedback. Much appreciated everyone.

An even more interested and now knowledgeable,

Christine :-)

Quote from: CMulla on October 29, 2014, 03:14:12 PM
when launching their brand and go for 'brand first, beer second.' The aim of the paper is to ascertain the impact of this decision.

I know the result in my case is that the disappointing beer I tried resulted in me never wanting to try another of their brews, regardless of how many childish stories they print on the packaging.
But feck it, more power to them. There's enough punters in Tesco to replace my custom.

I'm in agreement with LE.

@Christine - bear in mind that a brand is the some of the parts. All the beautiful brand design in the world means nothing if it doesn't translate into the purpose (or "belief") of the product - in this case a craft beer that is interesting (in flavour) reflecting the design work and story. Together they don't match and the brand fails in its entirety.

My company were getting internet service from a company which was very poor.
I could not wait to get rid of them.
They sent surveys every now and then to get feedback on how well they performed. I never filled then in. If I did I would have scored them very low.
Their marketing was all '90% customer satisfaction' which did not contain my opinion a they did not deserve my time.
What makes you think that the response to your request will be fair and unbiased?

of course it'll be biased. Isn't that the whole point of having an opinion?

You got me. I should have said accurate, not unbiased.

I find their name and the branding tacky. Worse still their beer is awful.

I tried a bottle a while back, it was not good so i doubt i'd ever buy another.

But too many times i have tried craft beers that  i found to be overpriced muck !

But at same time made me happy i could produce better  :)

Everything you're saying is the whole point of my doing the paper. The company went for 'brand first' - my question is, was it the right decision, does it correlate with the product they're offering and is it sustainable? You're exactly right Ozbrewer, and your point is part of what I'll try to pull out of the responses I get.

Johnrm, all that I can do is try to get opinions from as broad a spectrum as possible. Had I solely asked people who are engaging with the McGargles brand what they think, the aim of the research would, for sure, have been completely biased. Instead, I approach this forum and another, wrote a blog post to the general public and sent the link out through my social media accounts. Within my current constraints as a student, that is the best I could do.

Again, to everyone, many thanks for the feedback. This is an excellent forum!

I haven't tasted any of the McGargles beers, so I exited your survey on Q4 ;) However, for what it's worth there are two reasons I have steered clear of it:

1) the general consensus among craft beer enthusiasts on NHC and Beoir forum that the beers are in fact, dreadful.
2) the vile branding. Even if the beers were the best in the world, I still wouldn't go near them. Hideous, stereotypical cartoon characters? That's alright if you're selling kids cereal, or fruit cordial, but craft beer?? I shudder to think of the money some marketing agency received for cooking up drivel like this.

Best of luck with your research, OP.

CMulla you may have already seen this but its a great take on craft beer labelling from graphic design legend Milton Glaser. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/30/magazine/mag30-Glaser-beer-sidebar.html?_r=0

Guys, Beer is all subjective. I own Rye River with my friends Alan Wolfe and Steve Gilsenan. While the beers or our branding don't suit everyone, we do have a huge amount of loyal drinkers here and abroad.

I don't agree that we are a brand first, beer second business. We put equal passion and energy into both.

At the international Beer challenge, our McGargles Red won a bronze and our Pilsner a silver. We've also won a lot of awards for the branding.

I love beer in general but the are beers that have won WBA's that I think are terrible and beers that have never won anything that I love. Thats why I love the industry, everyone has an opinion, and everyone's opinion is right, because all that matters is what you personally like or don't like.

A cynic might say that the WBAs are about marketing.

World beer awards are judged without any knowledge of the brand you're drinking. Products are tasted in their beer groupings against a set of criteria for that beer style.

Not disputing that or having a go at McGargles, but as I understand it a brewery has to pay to enter the WBA, and winners tend to promote their success in marketing materials, labelling etc. As a for instance no sooner had the Fran Well been taken over by Coors than it won a WBA which featured ion its revamped marketing - and again I'm not slagging, the FW is my local.

Which is why I take those Taste of Ireland labels in Lidl with a pinch of salt as well. 

 :D Was thinking that alright except HBCs are just about ego, not marketing

http://www.internationalbeerchallenge.com/why-enter/

QuoteWhy Enter the International Beer Challenge 2014?

Being part of the IBC carries a number of significant benefits. It acknowledges the skill of the brewer, and is an internationally recognised symbol of quality frequently displayed on bottle labels. Retailers and wholesalers are justifiably proud of the range of award winning beers they carry. Drinks lists promote IBC award-winners directly to the consumer and can influence their buying decision. In short, a medal or trophy can help sell your beer for you!
Raise your brands' profile, prestige and credibility with retailers and consumers
Demonstrate your commitment to product quality, innovation and new product development
Increase product sales
Boost awareness of your brand in the media via extensive editorial and press coverage in Off License News Drinks International and its industry-leading media partners
Be tasted by renowned international industry judges
Use the IBC awards logo on packaging and as part of your own promotional plan
Discover how your brand stands up against its competitors in the eyes of our expert judges
Opportunity for medal-winning products to be available and tasted at the IBC awards events

Yeah I was reading it over on Beoir. To go as far as to getting stickers printed is a tad deranged.

What's going on? Spill the beans :). Can't find anything on beoir...

See here...
http://www.beoir.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11043

That's the work of a craft beer extremist. Is craft beer terrorism going to become a thing? String the bastards up by their jihad beards and drip feed them Budweiser Lite until their sleeve tattoos are faded into one green wrinkly smudge.

That's shockin. Beer fascism.

Does anyone know what the McGargles Font is?
This lad used the same font and seems to have laid out his label nicely.
Any desktop publishers here?

Maybe a cunning marketing ploy from Rye River?

My guess is took their logo, and changed it in photoshop, very easy to do. And most labels come with a layout for printing circular labels so all done on a pc at home as no company in Ireland would want to be held responsible for printing these I say.

after some research found the font, it's free so anyone can use it, they would've had to use the font as the lower case g is cut off in any pictures online, you could recreate the bottom part I guess if you wanted. Took a while to figure out the font for the writing underneath but found something similar, I'm going off that tiny photo.

But I was able to make this in 5 mins.
(http://photos5.pix.ie/13/3E/133E2028C0AD4974991FC7437CBBA4AB-0000353802-0003787577-00500L-1101087DD1D54DD493621858E6A085EA.jpg)

I'd like to mention I haven't been in Waterford for 2+ years.  ;D

Have Rye River hired Get'er brewed's PR people.

Harsh :(

I reckon whoever is responsible for it is an idiot anyway!

Is it idiot beer nerds doing that or competition?

I was wondering this myself.. I doubt there's a commercial craft brewer in the country who's willing to risk their reputation by pulling such a spectacularly dumb stunt like that.

I'd say it's just some plonker with an axe to grind. From what I've read on the NHC and Beoir threads, it appears nobody like either the McGargles brand or the beer. I have to say, I'm amazed to learn that Rye River produce the same amount of beer in a year as O'Hara's. Really??