Building brand advocacy at Allens of Mayfair

I found myself at a butchery class a couple of weeks ago and it struck me what a great brand experience it turned out to be. I walked away with nearly seventy quidsworth of meat and a true convert to the brand after ninety minutes of expert tuition, tall stories and bad (but good) jokes.

What convinced me? The environment, the product, the sourcing, the history was all fascinating but it really came down to the guy that delivered all of this in such a personable and entertaining way. Welsh Michael as he was known was the single most important person in those 90 minutes and he did a brilliant job of tutoring and ensuring everybody really enjoyed it.

It’s a great example of an impressive institution or brand being strengthened or completely undone by their staff – especially when the product they offer is so heavily reliant on that service. Restaurants are the classic example – you can spend £2000 on each chair but pay the waiter minimum wage and you’re unlikely to see glowing reviews and repeat custom. Similarly alcohol brands spend millions every year on promoting their products at the point of purchase. Fonts, POS and permanent display will only do so much, the real influencer is standing behind the bar on £6 quid an hour.

Back to Allens - you could be forgiven for thinking it’s an institution that’s always been that way but it turns out that the shop had fallen into disrepair and the business was run purely for the trade until just four years ago.

Following a takeover the owners clearly saw the potential in the cooking revolution that swept the UK and began to target consumers directly rather than just the catering trade. The grade II listed shop is a unique experience in itself but it’s not just the bricks and mortar store that’s doing a good trade, the newly opened website has driven such high demand that an extra storage site has been purchased to cope with the increased stock requirement. With such an impressive product, PR seems to come pretty easily too, from a TV show on Dave to a Vogue photo shoot.

You can’t start word of mouth but you can encourage it, and with 400 people queuing up for the course I did, they can be sure of generating many more brand advocates and conversations all over the London.