Marketing in Greece pt.1

I've been away on holiday staying in a wonderful small Greek sailing/fishing village called Paleros on the west coast. We have family there and my Brother in law Kosta runs a bar on the beach (yes it's one of the tougher things I have to deal with in my life). It was great to just forget about marketing things and to kick back and relax, enjoy the fabulous hospitality and spend some time thinking about the more important things in life.

It was weird though as I saw a real example of the effects of the recession that to be honest haven't really hit home while at home. It's a great place to go as it really is an authentic Greek town, its beautiful and it feels unspoilt although there is plenty to see and do there so you dont feel isolated. It does however rely heavily on tourist trade. mainly English, Greek and sailing types. Last time I went three years ago it was buzzing every night, the bars were packed and I could hardly get to the bar to get my free drinks! This time it was a very different story.

There were two main holiday resorts in the town and one of them went bust last year leaving an unimaginable hole in the local economy. It went bust due to the parent companies over ambitious Worldwide expansion plans that got scuppered by the downturn. While there are still plenty of people there  it is noticeable how difficult thing have become. Not only are they down on numbers of tourists but the staff at the resorts who are major customers of bars like my Brother in laws now have far less money to go out with and so their custom is at a premium.

The feeling of competitiveness between the bars and resaurants in now palpable as they struggle to come to terms with a local downturn the likes of which they havent seen for a long time, if ever. New innovative ways of marketing their hostelries to those punters out there have had to be devised and this is where the natural form of marketing has started to show it's face.

If you mentioned mar comms to these guys they'd look at you like you were mad but dont think for a minute that they are not sophisticated in their approach. They play the same games as major multi nationals such as P&G do when they launch new and possibly unnecessary baby/child products to head off the decline in the birth rate and therfore profit (Kandoo anyone?). They are well versed in PR, Sales promotion, DM and a host of other techniques that we study at marketing school but they use naturally as a way of boosting sales.

I even managed to get in on the act while I was there. Kosta was running a promotion to attract the young English staff to his bar on one of his quiet nights, A free Watermelon Vodka punch night. He showed me the flyer. It was intricate and interesting but not very clear and so I set about producing a club style flyer with dodgy watermelons in various states of intoxication making words like FREE and VODKA and THURSDAY NIGHT leap off the page.

Our head designer would have murdered me if he'd seen it - not very sophisticated! Kosta thought it was ok and we plastered it in all the relevant places. The place was packed. I daren't take credit for this but it did get me a new client! I am now putting together some flyers for the Punch night on Saturday followed by some others to be briefed.

I'd like to say that this is pro bono work for a family member but actually it is going some way to pay off all the free drinks I got on holiday - They're pretty shrewd these Greeks!