Brands, marketing and a right royal thirst

Brands are important. Global brands protect their image fiercely, cracking down on shoddy, knock-off counterfeit versions of their products that are knocked up in sweat shops by children, with trading standards officers swooping or swooshing on market stalls and car-booters and confiscating trainers, hats and whatever else they think will make good Christmas presents for those members of the family they do not like, but feel obliged to gift to. (They never, however, drink any of the confiscated counterfeit booze, although they do use it to clean the grease off their bike cogs).

Kinky Friedman once wrote that the three most recognisable brands in the world were Elvis, Jesus and Coca Cola. Two blokes famous for making comebacks and a fizzy drink as the most recognised brands globally? Probably true. I reckon more people have heard of Elvis than Microsoft, even today.

But lets allow for some regional input here. The Queen. That’s a pretty famous brand in the UK. So much so that when one says ‘The Queen’ one instantly knows which Queen you mean. You don’t have to bother with the full ‘Queen Elizabeth II’ title and then bang on about dominions and being defender of the faith. The Queen is the longest serving monarch alive today and as such, pretty much defines the brand. Other European countries have royal families that work, go on bicycles and are seen as ‘modern’. The Commonwealth is lucky enough to have a monarch who realises that subjects have certain expectations of their monarchy and works hard to fulfil it.

Possibly one of the reasons The Queen is so embedded in the consciousness is the ubiquity of her image. She’s on more than tourist tat souvenir tea towels; she’s on coins, currency and stamps, she’s everywhere.

Also a dominant brand is Guinness. Other stouts are available but chances are that if you walk into a pub and fancy a pint of the black stuff, you order a Guinness, not a pint of stout. The Guinness image probably runs The Queen a close second in terms of penetration of the national consciousness, ask people to picture a Guinness and they will instantly picture a pint glass of black beer with a white head, possibly with a shamrock in it if the barman is a tit or a crudely drawn cock if he is a wag. Other images associated with the brand are baffling but universally acknowledged as ‘clever’ tee vee adverts, as well as a huge back catalogue of ‘classic’ adverts for the brand, dated by their exuberant claims for the benefits of drinking the stuff. Advert: makes you strong, gives you iron, there’s a baby in every bottle. Reality: like all alcohol it keeps the working classes pissed and poor.


These two great brands came head to head yesterday as The Queen visited the Guinness brewery in Dublin. The brewery has a museum inside it – ‘the Guinness experience’ – and I have to say it’s well worth a visit if, hitherto, you thought that ‘the Guinness experience’ was the monumental bowel movement you experience the morning after a night of binging on the stuff. You see how it’s made and then end the tour in ‘The Gravity Bar’, a pleasant bar situated at the top of a tower featuring panoramic views of Dublin. You have a pint of Guinness and wander off to do some shopping for Guinness branded souvenir tat.


The Queen looked round the brewery and ended up in the bar, where the barman pulled a pint and put it on the bar in front of her.*

Now, with the world’s press watching this had obviously been too good a marketing opportunity to miss. The sight of The Queen sipping from, or even grasping, a pint of Guinness would have been on the front page of every newspaper in the UK.

Of course, no woman of The Queen’s age or class is going to drink from a pint glass, so she was never going to sip it (thought if her grandson had been there I’m sure he’d of downed it in one, burped the national anthem and demanded another) never mind take a long pull and remark ‘that hit one’s spot’ or similar.

(Although, as anyone who has drunk in a Young’s pub will know, the late Queen Mother had a go at pulling a pint at a Young’s pub, as did the Prince of Wales. The photographs of these events hang like portraits on the wall of every Young’s pub. What’s interesting is how natural they both look doing it. The Queen Mother was of course an Edwardian lady, but she looks for all the world like somebody who could be landlady of the greatest little boozer you have ever visited, keeping the place going while her husband is away during the war. Charles looks very much like a work-experience student working behind the bar, trying to do a good job while the adults are in charge. Which is not a bad job description for being Prince of Wales.)

It would be good to record that The Queen looked at the pint as if the barman had just placed a steaming shit on the bar, with a ‘and what has this to do with me?’ expression.

The reality was infinitely sadder for the Guinness marketing anoraks. She regarded it that the trademark amused curiosity and pleasure that she exhibits whenever she visits some backward country and they place a local delicacy in front of her, be it a Cornish pasty or some sort of fermented yam concoction that the village head man chews and then spits up into a baboon skull drinking vessel.

Surely Guinness missed a trick, if they had served a small sample in a champagne flute, I reckon it’s evens she would have tried it. Guinness would have had their photograph, a new market would have opened up as the sort of women who only drink sherry would be thinking ‘well if The Queen likes it…’ and started drinking Guinness out of flutes, which Guinness could also manufacture and sell. Imagine it, The Royal Guinness; two champagne flutes with the harp logo and name on and a can of the stuff to fill them, all in a presentation box with ‘that’ photograph. That’s Christmas sorted.

*I wonder what happened to The Royal Pint. As previously mentioned, the place was full of hacks. One suspect it went the way of all alcohol when journalists are present. South. Quickly.