Marston's PLC

Marston's plc is a leading independent brewing and pub retailing business operating around 2,150 pubs and bars across England and Wales.  The group consists of Marston’s Inns and Taverns, the managed pub division and Marston’s Beer & Pub Company, a tenanted and leased pub and brewing division.

Marston’s delivered a  robust set of results for 2011 utilising their strategy to exploit and develop competitive advantage in the pub and brewing sectors.  Messaging was an important part of the process this year with time spent considering best practice developments alongside key requirements.  Using a full range of methods and tools, we clearly illustrated the key reasons to invest in Marston’s and provided advice and guidance throughout the process.  The strategy was illustrated graphically within a business model which clearly defined progress, objectives and future plans.   Alongside an upfront investor proposition statement, we provided advice and guidance on layout of the printed and online annual reports.   The online annual report features easy to use navigation on the left of the document, this is constant throughout the document. The footer displays a scrolling element highlighting the company's financial highlights as well as providing the ability to download the report.  The website includes standard functionality of pop up boxes for notes, and a PDF basket to generate customised PDF documents.

Online tools were used by the team at Marston’s to enable self-editing within the report itself which became particularly useful when the timetable became tight and the report was effectively signed off at the same time as the preliminary announcement.