Fabric Bar Runners Are Dead.

Rubber Bar Runners are where it’s at. And Fabric Bar Runners aren’t. That’s what we’re hearing anyway.

So let’s start at the beginning. We all know what Bar Runners are. They’re your way to “brand” the venue where they sell your product. They sit on the bar in between the customer and the pump and work like your brand’s mini billboard. They’re a bit of an unsung hero as, aside from your glassware and the pumps thelmselves, they’re really the one other product the consumer can never really miss. The challenge with Bar Runners though is that there is only so much bar space available. This makes bar space “bar real estate” - a valuable part of a venue where a customer has to go to get there product. The logistics of a bar or club are designed so that you can’t avoid it, but because of this the competition to get here is fierce - and to stand out here is even more competitive.

So what can you do?

Job number one is to make sure that your Bar Runner is one that the venue actually WANTS TO USE. This get’s overlooked all the time. Brands tend to focus solely on the design and miss the bigger picture. The bar owner is the one that decides day to day which Bar Runner sits on their bar, so you have to consider that when you design yours.

Now we’ve done our research here and we’re going to let you into a secret. Fabric Bar Runners are dead. Sure you can print full colour and they can be cheaper per unit than they rubber counterpart, but when it comes to function, customisation, detail and impact they don’t even come close.

They don’t wash well.
When they get wet, they stay wet.
The colour fades.
They all look the same.

This is what bar staff are telling us and this is why bar owners prefer not to use them. That’s what we found out when we canvassed 150 bar owners and bar staff around Kent and London (this was a nice job to have). When it comes to Bar Runners it’s the Rubber ones that win the day. They’re easy to wash, they dry on their own, bar staff love them and they just look better on the bar. From a design point of the view too, the visual impact Rubber Bar Runners give to your brand is unrivalled versus the Fabric Bar Runner.

So when you’re designing your next Bar Runner think about all of this. Point of Sale Merchandise is an essential cost of sale, and we get that. So make sure you squeeze the most value out of every penny, which starts with making sure that your Bar Runner is the one that get’s used, which means it gets seen.

Winners all round.