1960 meets 2010:  An old-school bar that worships JKF and all things Irish has a web page:  The Dubliner

I’d gone to the web to verify if the Eddies, a local a cappella group, were truly going to play the Dubliner–a bar I’d always thought of as the local Irish dive that I’d driven by a thousand times. Kieran’s it isn’t. I did not except to find a website, let alone a brilliant one.

Inside it’s 1960 all the way with JFK posters, period Guinness advertising posters and the original neon from

the bar’s predecessor  the Ace Box Bar. There’s a popcorn maker opposite the bar if you’re hungry and all the usual suspects on tap (Guinness, Harp, Hard Cider, Schell’s, Summit, etc.).

So how do you distill that imagery into a marketing message?

How do you communicate succinctly “gritty, but friendly; neighborhood bar with eclectic music and decent tap selection; no cover; free parking; Irish; JFK fanatics.”

You don’t with just words.

Per Wikipedia, Positioning’s  original focus “was cutting through the ambient “noise” and establishing a moment of real contact with the intended recipient.” It’s how marketers build an image in the consumer’s mind. Good positioning catches your interest and holds it — it’s Joe Mauer needing to “take it outside”, but not so much the homage to Coke and Mean Joe Green.

So what makes The Dubliner‘s website so brilliant? It’s what’s not there – no links, no fancy graphics, no obvious  smart graphic design, no advertising, no logo, no pseudo Irish pub signs, no…. There’s a drink, some napkins, and the week’s music calendar. It’s spare–just like the bar itself. It tells the consumer just what to expect — good music and a decent drink in a simple setting.