Bar Cards - someone's success story

Distribution is the key. If you can sort that out, then everything else should fall into place. The American market, for example, you don’t want to get wrong. It’s very much about finding the right distributor before getting the market going. In the first half of 2007 we are launching six American cities – L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Washington DC and another to be decided.

All of the deals to date have been deals. I have not gone into business with anyone else. Over time I certainly want to change that and develop some kind of incentive-based partnership scheme. There’s a lot of trial and error. You might succeed in one market, but another market will be completely different.

Having a suite of different streams to choose from is crucial. When I approach different cities, one of the strategies is to try and secure sponsorship from the various tourism bodies. Some cities are big on bars, but others might be more into culture, or something else.

Every title is intended to go on indefinitely. And therefore every title requires updating and additional marketing support to reinvigorate it. Seventeen titles are a lot of work, especially when they involve different countries and different topics.”

To date there are Bar Secrets decks for Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, London, Hong Kong, Edinburgh, Dublin, Barcelona, Ibiza, with launches in China and US scheduled for 2007. Other decks include brunch secrets, daytrip secrets and spa secrets, with more in the works.

from: http://anthillonline.com/start-the-press/