Young and Co.'s
Propeller had already been working with Young & Co.'s on their individual pub websites for several years when it was commissioned to redesign their corporate website in 2007.
What they Wanted
The corporate website for Young & Co.’s needed to convey the multiple aspects of the company in a clear, informative and engaging manner. All of the Young & Co.’s pub estates, both managed and tenanted, needed to have information available online. An intuitive search facility was required in order to allow searches by area and by postcode, thus enabling people to easily find their nearest Young’s pub or hotel. Young & Co.'s beers are widely celebrated, and the large selection available to consumers needed to be displayed in a clear and concise manner, informing fans of the different types of beer on offer, along with details about the taste and the brewing techniques used. Young & Co.’s are a major employer in London and the South East, so a recruitment section was required in order to allow them to advertise employment opportunities for both managers and bar staff. The company’s history needed to be communicated online, detailing the rise of Young & Co.’s from the 16th Century to the modern day. Finally, the website required a section detailing the financial returns of the business for both current and future investors.
What Propeller Delivered
To allow for all of the information that Young & Co.’s wanted to include on their website, Propeller created a sophisticated CMS which allows central and local control of much of the content on the website. This means that Young’s themselves can edit the information that appears on the individual pub pages, the search terms under which the pubs can appear, employment opportunities that are displayed, and also the information on the products available from Young & Co.’s. Propeller built a complex search system into the Young & Co.’s website which enables prospective customers to find a pub using terms such as “Real Fire”, “Riverside” and ‘Live Sports’. Propeller has also created three separate pages on the Young & Co.’s website, splitting the pubs into three separate sections; “Drink with Us”, “Dine with Us” and “Stay with Us”. These three separate pages allow Young & Co.’s to split their estate according to the various strengths of each venue, thus allowing customers to find a pub that suits their requirements.
Result
Propeller delivered a dynamic online strategy for Young’s which has allowed their pub and hotel estate to speak to an ever-growing audience. Young and Co.’s online presence is unrivalled in the industry and places them in the perfect position to target email communication to an increasing customer base. Database growth had been a major success of the strategy Propeller put in place for Young and Co.’s. Young’s have run various promotions through this corporate website, the most recent and most successful of which was ‘Dine with Wine’ in January of 2009. Propeller delivered a massive e-marketing campaign, with a downloadable voucher system and high profile positions for the offer on top money saving sites such as ‘Voucher Codes’, ‘Money Saving Expert’ and ‘My Voucher Codes’. Voucher redemption figures were unprecedentedly high and ‘Dine with Wine’ was the most successful web-based promotion that Young’s have ever run in their long history.
