The Brewery is a retail and leisure destination in the heart of Romford, Essex. It is one of four large centres in the town, the others being The Mall and The Liberty shopping centres and Romford’s outdoor market. Featuring a mixture of well-known high street stores, The Brewery also has an excellent leisure offer with big names such as Frankie & Benny’s, Nandos, McDonalds, Pizza Express alongside Esporta Health & Fitness, Number Ten Bowling and Vue Cinemas. All of which make The Brewery very popular with all ages, particularly to those living in the town and within a less than 20-minute travel time.

In spring 2006, following comprehensive consumer research and a review of the existing marketing activity, the result was a new positioning for The Brewery:  “Romford’s Playground.”

A key element of the strategy would be community relations, primarily to differentiate The Brewery from the pure fashion centres in the town, and to underline its appeal to all age groups through its strong leisure, food and beverage line up.

Examples of community relations activities undertaken include: art and music-based outreach programmes to primary schools and borough libraries; integration of external stakeholders such as local modeling and talent schools into The Brewery’s calendar of events; participation of The Brewery in the town’s Christmas celebrations; and promoting a safe and sound message to families through a recognised Child Safe scheme.

Despite the success of many of these initiatives - evidenced by a 3.4% increase in dwell time to an average of 150 minutes; and the attraction of visitors from targeted affluent areas of South Woodford, Loughton, Epping and Brentwood - it was felt that teenagers remained hard to reach.

Against a background of minor levels of anti-social behaviour in the town, and a presence of teenage males gathering in and around the main shopping centres, The Brewery sought a proactive, positive approach to engage Romford’s youth.

The Brewery engaged with Havering Council, local schools and libraries, the Metropolitan Police, the Mayor of Romford and local media to gain feedbacks on the barriers thought to be holding back young people in the town.

The research pointed to lack of available activities for young teens to early adults, making it easy for them to become bored and potentially, get into trouble through committing crime and anti-social behaviour.

The Brewery sought to tackle this, and at the same time develop a range of activities that it could brand and own.

Community relations’ activities account for 20% of The Brewery’s total marketing budget. The remaining is deployed in implementing mall-based events to increase consumer dwell time, and generating retailer-led promotions (sometimes in tandem with the events) to drive footfall into store. These are marketed by direct mail and above the line advertising to the primary catchment, and to the secondary catchment at Christmas. Community relations activities take place throughout the year. ‘Playing to Win’ was launched in summer 2007 and is set to run for a minimum of three years to deliver benefits over a sustained period.

Our Strategy

We carried out research over a three-month period in 2007 to identify potential concepts and partners to engage teenagers (with a bias towards males) in Romford. This phase was to prove critical, as it revealed a desire by three key local stakeholders to share in The Brewery’s ambitions, namely The Metropolitan Police, Having Council and West Ham United Football Club.

The Met had pioneered a programme called Kickz in other London boroughs and in major cities in the UK with several major football clubs, which takes kids off the streets and on to the football pitch. The clubs provide proactive coaching sessions, carrying out the activities in areas where high instances of crime and anti-social behaviour actually take place.

The hook of professional club brands and the opportunities such as player appearances is very effective at attracting young people to participate, and, by taking the coaching to them, the more traditionally hard to reach groups can be engaged. Kickz also goes beyond football. It delivers positive messages about healthy lifestyles and the dangers of drugs, knife and gun crime, and it uses the discipline of the game to foster respect and build confidence in young people.

By bringing together Havering Council and its Safer Neighbourhood Team with Kickz, The Brewery would be able to target a known trouble spot: a series of estates in the Harold Hill area, just ten minutes from The Brewery. West Ham – which draws an enormous fan base from Romford – would carry out the football coaching right in the heart of the estates through direct funding of its coaches by The Brewery.

We christened the community relations’ initiative ‘Playing to Win’ with the objective of winning the hearts and minds of hard to reach young people through the positive power of football.

We decided that ‘Playing to Win’ should feature three key elements of value and importance, reflecting its investment in the concept:

·      First, the creation of a football team inspired by The Brewery, which would comprise players primarily from hard to reach groups. This would provide a tangible expression of the good work carried out by the coaches, and potentially build goodwill among players and their communities to The Brewery as the team’s sponsor.

·      A mechanism that would ensure The Brewery could tap in to the power and attraction of the West Ham brand, thereby delivering value to the centre’s consumer marketing programme.

·      Scope to involve its retailers in the project as it developed over time.

Implementation

Playing to Win involved The Brewery investing 10% of its annual marketing budget in funding two West Ham coaches to train 12 – 19 year old youths three times per week for 40 weeks during the school term time from September 2007 to school finish in July 2008.

The coaching takes place at two locations: Kingswood School and The Albemarle Youth Centre, both in Harold Hill, on the fringe of Romford town centre.

The Brewery’s tenants were engaged in the concept in June / July 2007 when the scope of the project was outlined. Following their buy-in, a football taster session carried out by West Ham was incorporated into a planned month-long series of free events for families. Over a weekend in August, West Ham coaches invited shoppers at The Brewery to try their skills at penalties, test their accuracy with a ball and win a variety of prizes. West Ham coaches also pre-promoted ‘Playing to Win’ to shoppers, engaging teens in the concept of a West Ham trained Brewery football team. This resulted in players being signed up for the team.

On September 3rd, The Brewery launched its team with a match against The Met at The Albemarle Youth Centre. The players chose a team name of Brewery Hill FC, combining The Brewery and Harold Hill. Because the game was held in the heart of the estates it provided an opportunity for hundreds of people in the community to watch, generating word of mouth for weeks after. The match provided a press launch with photocall opportunities for the initiative. Kitted out in their Brewery branded West Ham shirts, Brewery Hill triumphed 3-2 against The Met.

The launch match was timed to take place at the start of the academic year. Over subsequent weeks in September, the programme reached out to secondary schools within the primary catchment offering free training sessions to boys and girls within the target age group. (95% of the core players who train regularly with Brewery Hill attend the major local secondary schools of Kingswood, Bower Park and Brittons). Youth Police provided advice on specific individuals they felt to be ‘at risk,’ particularly those outside school and employment. These individuals were invited to the training sessions. Added reassurance for girls was the presence of female Youth Workers at the Albemarle Centre. While Thursday night football sessions were timed to coincide with a DJ workshop, taking place in the building to bring the community together around football and music.

In early January 2008, retailers at The Brewery were updated on the effectiveness of the programme and the plan to involve West Ham in events inside the mall. Such is the confidence and maturity displayed by members of the Brewery Hill team that retailers were invited to tap into this rich resource to satisfy their future recruitment needs, and to support the community that the programme serves.

In further recognition of the programme’s initial success, an ‘Open Chair’ session was held in January, which gave the young people a chance to express the ways in which they would like to see it develop. Some of these ideas, such as boxing classes, have already been put into practice. Urban dances classes will be developed by girls attending the programme.

Results

Each Playing to Win training session can cater for up to 30 players at a time. These were running at fall capacity within eight weeks of launch. At the time of writing they are at 98% occupancy.

80% of those participating in the programme live within a five minute walk of the Albemarle and Kingswood venues, demonstrating that the programme is penetrating hard to reach groups in the target area.

The initiative promotes valuable messages about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, knife and gun crime. Workshops have been held on the pitfalls, and youths identified with dependency issues in both areas, have been tackled through Playing to Win.

There are many positive success stories. It is helping to improve the fitness and health of players. It is alleviating boredom – and breaking down the barriers that exist between youths living on neighbourhood estates.

Says Sam, 16, Brewery Hill goalkeeper: “A couple of people who started coming here were a bit messed up… but since they’ve been here they’ve stopped smoking, stopped drinking… it’s helping people sort their lives out.”

Matt Benson, head coach for the team, says: “We’re getting them involved in organised activities where they really push themselves through the project into work, build up their confidence and get a bit of responsibility out of it.”

Ash, who was recruited at the taster session at The Brewery, says “Personally I get fitter from it – and because I play for a Sunday League team I benefit quite a lot.”

Turning out to play in the colours of their local club is a source of pride for all the team. The Brewery is also tapping into the West Ham brand in other ways. The Premiership team and Esporta have formed a partnership. West Ham will also be running two additional consumer-facing events in the malls, and organising a first team player appearance at The Brewery for PR purposes.

The PR campaign achieved a high impact launch. Over 200 people from the community watched the match against the Met. Mayor Georgina Galpin joined The Brewery Centre Director Rubie Charalambous, Dan Godfrey of West Ham and Police Supt Steve Wisbey and players for a photo call. Press coverage appeared in all the Romford paid and free newspapers, Essex-wide free sheets and paid local newspapers in Brentwood, Billericay and Thurrock. Romford’s local commercial radio station Time FM and community station Choice both brought crews to the event.

The key stakeholders are confident of its far-reaching benefits.

Metropolitan Police Chief Inspector Bill Doig: “This commitment to young people will provide a safe learning environment and it is hoped will also reduce crime and the fear of crime for all in the borough.”

Deborah Luff, Community Safety Manager, Havering Council: “We are confident it engages young people and helps them to understand the importance of teambuilding and community working, as well as help develop their own sense of self-esteem.”

Dan Godfrey, Community Liaison Officer at West Ham says: “By bringing young people together in this way we find that it enables us to help them in a wide range of areas as well as football. This is a ground-breaking initiative in Havering.”

Rubie Charalambous, Centre Director at The Brewery, Romford: “Already we can see the positive benefits that this investment is bringing. It is making huge in-roads by breaking down negative barriers and promoting positive messages.

“Moreover, it’s giving a group of young people a project that they can develop and take ownership over, which in turn equips them with skills vital to the world of work and their personal development. And we are confident that in time The Brewery will be fertile ground for employment opportunities for individuals on our project, which will be an extremely positive, long term outcome from Playing to Win.”