"So you're just pocketing the extra cash?" A messaging guide for the #VATsTheProblem campaign
On the 1st of July, #VATsTheProblem stopped being an industry conversation and became a public one. The campaign to cut hospitality VAT from 20% to 10% is now out in the open, its posters and materials appearing in venues across the country (and maybe in yours too), and as the number of signatures surpass 250,000 - a quarter of the way towards its goal of one million signatures - every conversation matters.
All of that paraphernalia is designed to raise awareness and spark those conversations, because if the campaign is going to succeed, it needs to belong to the wider community: to the people who love and need these places every bit as much as the people who run them and work in them. Our teams are the intermediaries between hospitality businesses and the public, the everyday ambassadors for the brilliance and importance of this industry, and that means they are likely to be the ones facing the questions. If the campaign is to have the cut-through it needs, it matters enormously that they are equipped and empowered with a genuine understanding of what it is truly about, and how to talk about it.
There is one question in particular worth preparing for, and it has arguably arisen from the very nature of the campaign itself. The loudest voices behind it are the highest profile chefs, which is essential for any public and governmental cut-through, but these are also the people with the most visible success, and the cars, houses and other trappings that come with it. Set against the public's own squeezed purses, and their understandable unfamiliarity with how the wider industry actually works, a perfectly reasonable assumption follows: that their bill should get 10% cheaper.
For most establishments it won't, and that needs explaining with honesty, transparency and warmth. The saving is not a windfall to be passed on but a buffer for survival, the difference between renewing the lease and handing back the keys, between keeping a full team and cutting hours. To complicate matters further, this is not a given across the board. Some establishments may indeed drop their prices by around 10%, having made the calculation that additional footfall is the thing that will be most meaningful to them; these are likely to be the larger chains, or the places more focused on growth than survival. There is nothing wrong with that choice, but it does muddy the water - especially if the most visible advocates are those that people (rightly or wrongly) assume do not need extra cash. A customer who sees prices fall at a chain while holding steady at their local independent could easily conclude that the independent is pocketing the difference, when in truth that difference is exactly what is keeping the doors open.
This guide exists to clear all of that up. It sets out where the money actually goes, why the cut matters, the facts and figures you need to remember, and how to answer the tricky questions that your teams might be asked. So please download it, print it, and put it up in the staffroom, by the coffee machine, in the staff loo.
We still need 750,000 more signatures, and they will only come when people understand that this is their fight too. Because what hangs in the balance is not an industry's margins but the jobs their kids will grow up into, the places their communities gather, and the vibrant culture that makes this country somewhere worth eating in. That understanding starts with a conversation, and that conversation may well start with you.
Countertalk's #VATsTheProblem Messaging Guide
