Alcohol-related crime wave – Drayton Bird Associates

I see the Manchester police have launched a crackdown on alcohol-related violent crime.

Yesterday as a prelude to my birthday my radiant companion and her sister planned to take me on a mini-pub crawl from Holland Park to chez nous in Chelsea. I had even sorted out the best pubs to go to.

Before you conclude that I’m back to the bad old days when friends knew me as Bird The Lurch, I only had a list of 5 places, so I guess you might call it more of a hop than a crawl,

In the end we didn’t do it. Instead we went with friends to the Mandarin Kitchen in Queensway; best lobster with noodles in London, then Gelato Mio in Notting Hill Gate; best ice cream in London.

All this has nothing to do with violent crime, except that I decided some sort of crackdown was in order when I went to the Cadogan Arms – a very ordinary pub round the corner from us on the Kings Road – and they asked me for well over £3 for a pint of bitter.

This is actually an incitement to violent crime. The only pubs in London that charge sane prices for beer are those belonging to Samuel Smith of Tadcaster. Yorkshire Best Bitter, £1:90.

This rather old fashioned policy, which is called giving value for money, may be the reason why Sam Smith’s pubs tend to be gratifyingly full while others close down every day. The Cadogan Arms has just reopened for the second time in two years. Very pretty pseudo Victorian, but a total rip-off.

Even Sam Smith’s are not a crime-free area. Their prices for wine – and theirs is not very good – are as extortionate as most other pubs’.

About the Author

In 2003, the Chartered Institute of Marketing named Drayton one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing.

He has worked in 55 countries with many of the world’s greatest brands. These include American Express, Audi, Bentley, British Airways, Cisco, Columbia Business School, Deutsche Post, Ford, IBM, McKinsey, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Visa and Volkswagen.

Drayton has helped sell everything from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig. His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has also run his own businesses in the U.K., Portugal and Malaysia.

He was a main board member of the Ogilvy Group, a founding member of the Superbrands Organisation, one of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing and one of the first three people named to the Hall of Fame of the Direct Marketing Association of India. He has also been given Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida.

About the Author

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